..and hard times come and hard times go.
Well, you thought 2011 turned fast, that was clearly a test run for 2012.
it has FLOWN!!!
Did it really turn at exactly the same speed as its predecessor? really? I have my doubts, i think it speeded up somewhere around June and didn't stop until November.
But here were are again. My awards of the year. In a year where it rained. and rained. and rained. in fact 2012 is now the wettest year on record for the UK. and our country has been round for quite a while. The sun popped its head in for two weeks during the Olympics and then buggered off and hasn't been seen since. the Christmas, the festival I am writing this in currently has seen rain every day consecutively and at time has been continuous. I don't know how those people in the lowlands are coping. i'm just happy that me and mine live on hills. water rolls down hills. this is good.
But behind the cut are the usual suspects. Some you know and some you don't. feel free to browse, argue, contest. But here they are, in no obvious order:
Event of the Year 2012
The 30th Olympiad
London. England won the dubious distinct of hosting the “Porno” Olympics (as no one calls it, but anything translated to XXX in Roman numerals deserves some toilet humour) back in 2005, a time for much celebrating across the country for, oh, about a day before the tube trains blew up the following morning. Ever since then news reports have followed the traditional British manner of scepticism, scorn and negativity over everything from the construction schedule, security to the big questions of what we do with everything after the whole thing closes. In the end everything came in on time and with the exception of the dodgy security firm pulling out at the last second and having to be bailed out by the military there was very little to moan about as the British Olympians (both able-bodied and not) presented their second consecutive impressive Olympics, coming third behind China and the USA.
The opening ceremony was to many the highlight. Created by Danny Boyle it has some fabulous set pieces including something about the NHS and 5 gigantic suspended rings spitting “molten steel” everywhere in honour of Britain’s role at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution. Events wise it was both the usual suspects and the newbies. Anything sitting down was easy meat as Britain dominated in both cycling and rowing but individual stars like Jessica Ennis in the decathlon and Nicola Adams in the boxing (first for women) gave women’s sports in the UK a desperately needed boost. The more we get girls and women inspiring to be more active and less like the TOWIE brigade the better for everybody. The only negative point of the whole thing was the UK swimming team, who got caught reading their own press-clippings and just didn’t bother showing up. Bummer!
Honourable Mention
Britain celebrating Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee. Marking a reign of sixty years it gave the country an extra day off and a total of four days in a row. Appropriate that the day in question turned into a traditional British summer rainstorm, completely wrong-footing the media who were reamed for providing less-than-stellar improv commentary. And the Duke got a bladder infection as a result. Well he is 91!
Sporting Event of 2012
The 30th Olympiad
This year in sport was only about the Olympics.
And I can happily say that Britain pulled it off. I don’t know what the rest of the world, or even the British public itself was expecting when the countdown began for the games. I know they weren’t expecting the kind of traffic chaos that ensued as every street in the country had to host someone local running with a bloody torch in order to represent something (to this day I have no idea exactly what).
But the opening ceremony was impressive, along with the UK’s medal haul. Britain had a raw deal from the onset having to follow China and their zillions of workers, but somehow we pulled it off and Danny Boyle created something inherently British, particularly the nod to the NHS even as Cameron and his gang are trying to tear it apart.
And what was great was the Paraolympics followed suite, with a fabby C4 campaign giving the athletes centre stage (“Time for the Main Event”) as the less able-bodied got their time in the sun alongside the Bolts and Phelps of the world.
HM
Superbowl 46. Giants beat Patriots for the second time in four years to claim their fourth title. Known in my memory as The Grey Bowl given the dullness of the uniforms and general lack of big-plays on either side. It was a game of two great teams which unfortunately resulted in a lot of feints and jabs and counters but not a lot of big-game action.
Film of the Year 2011
Cabin in the Woods
Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon wrote and directed this back in ’09 but a catalogue of issues (finances and the studio’s stubborn attempt to convert the film to 3D) delayed it until this year. I actually missed it on release and caught it on the plane crossing the pond from NYC in September. Brilliant in concept, Whedon hoped it would be a satire of the recent ‘torture-porn’ genre; it had many people talking about it in work both on ideas and performances. Not least of all Fran Kranz’s Marty, who ranted about puppets before staring in Whedon’s Dollhouse and becoming the ultimate puppeteer as a result.
HM
The Hunger Games - Film #1 of the trilogy cut a lot of the empathic meaning out of the book but still grossed shedloads at the box-office. The “new” Twilight it should make stars of all the major characters and I’m already eager to see Film #2 starring Lynn Cohen (“Mags”) and Jenna Malone (“Johanna Mason”) from Sucker Punch.
The Avengers - Whedon’s ensemble superhero film smashed records like ninepins. Lacking in actual plot it was genuinely funny and smart with some impressive fight sequences and debuting Hawkeye to the big screen (character’s a personal favourite).
Film first seen in 2012
Wheels of Terror/The Misfits (1988)
A movie adaptation of the Sven Hassel books the second title was the American one as the US tried to capitalise on the banter and anti-establishment attitude of the plot of the main characters against their superiors. Set on the Eastern Front during WW2 it is the story of the 27th Penal Panzer regiment (like the German Dirty Dozen, with tanks!) a group of political prisoners, thieves and asocials as they try and survive between the relentless Red Army and their own glory-hungry officers. Staring American B-List actors at the time (Bruce Davidson, David Patrick Kelly, Keith Szarabajka) and cameos by Oliver Reed and David Carradine as Wehrmacht officers it is incredibly disjointed as movies go. No one Nazi salutes, all the formal military drill is akin to the modern US terminology and motion and there are plot holes, continuity aspects and question marks from beginning to end.
So why do I like it?
Because the script isn’t actually that bad. You really care for the Brigade given they have such a raw deal from everybody. Being produced at the end of the eighties with the Russians still being the “bad guys” in the eyes of Hollywood it doesn’t shy away from the awfulness of the war in the East; the machine-gunning of defenceless soldiers, garrotting, tank-battles, constantly changing rules of war and a dog called Stalin. What I noticed early is how all the main characters mention Valhalla (heaven) as a place they’ll all end up eventually, a grim pragmatism that is lacking in many WW2 movies throughout the years declaring we’re all goners so why not make the best of it while we’re here? Cos we can have anything we want in Valhalla. Carpe diem indeed.
HM
In The Valley of Elah (2007)
My poppa picked this up in a charity shop, and he oddly picked up a BAFTA nomination copy (the movie is just plain, minus any promotion and minus the cameo of James Franco which was added later). Tommy Lee Jones has to solve his son’s murder and has his eyes opened to the cost that serving personnel pay in the Iraq/Afghan conflict. Charlize Theron plays a fabulous supporting role fighting her own demons as a lady detective in a masculine unquestioning environment.
Album of the Year 2012
Life In A Beautiful Light by Amy MacDonald
Amy’s second award after scooping the coveted nod for her debut back in 2008. In a thin field for albums this year (I lack the up-to-date musical taste of most Brits) her 12 track third album was found when I was looking for the new Killers album Battle Born. Not a long album, less than 45 minutes of playing time, it hit home with me on two songs; The Furthest Star and Left That Body Long Ago the latter being a poignant nod to the cruelty of dementia. For some reason the album reminds me of Amy Pond’s (Dr. Who) key moments over the past two and a half years, and when the Ponds vacated the show this summer made certain phrases even more emotive.
HM
Push and Shove - No Doubt. Their first original studio album since 2002 is a mixed bag of cool and meh. Needs more playing.
The Truth About Love - P!nk. Latest offering U-turns from her rants about society and people to focus more on her relationship, motherhood and being a grown up. Albeit a shouty grown-up. Trying to get interest to go see her live in 2013.
Album First Heard in 2012
Something for the Rest of Us by Goo Goo Dolls
Released in 2010 to moderate blank-stares in the UK I didn’t know of its existence until I saw a YouTube video about Being Human (Brit TV show) with the song as overplay to Mitchell’s inner turmoil. Bought the album, rather impressed with songs like Home, Still Your Song and Notbroken. Basically the usual Goo Goo Dolls fare about sentiment, love, loss and regret. Very OTT, very American, which explains why the UK crowd don’t go for them.
Song of the Year 2012
The Furthest Star by Amy MacDonald
Amy hits the double. That’s not to say this was biased, the song is good enough to be sung on X-Factor and I’d still buy it (well, maybe…). Surprisingly true to how I feel about my life at the moment, wishing on stars, dreaming, trying to make those dreams a reality. Crashing as the first dreams fail, dealing with rejection, getting up and trying again.
“I’ll be free with what I believe and I won’t sell my soul just to achieve my goal..”
The voice in the back of your head that tells you not to sell out to “them” and remember where you come from, etc. An idea in direct contrast to the TV nowadays pumping fame and stardom like cocaine vapour through the screens, addicting the minds of seemingly everyone.
“And I’ll sing from my heart if you’ll listen to me, everything I do is what I believe”
Be honest. To yourself especially, it’s the only way to happiness in the 21st century it seems.
My favourite line easily being the honest “…nothing stays and nothing sticks when you’re rolling with the lunatics”.
A direct nod to the gang of mad bastards I work with and how we, like the Oakland Raiders, are a group that thinks dysfunction is function and endeavour to become a centre of excellence as a result.
Less than three minutes long, this is a song that when I first heard it I thought, ‘Geez she’s singing about me’. Singing about the fight and the struggle to succeed, and how that journey is often sweeter and more enjoyable than the glory and end-result when you do obtain what you wanted.
HM
Push & Shove by No Doubt - My party song of the year, with an impressive black and white video to boot. Extra help in the vocals by Major Laser.
Don’t Forget Me by SMASH’s Katherine McPhee - Didn’t know she was an American Idol contestant till I’d fallen in love with the song. The finale of the first season of SMASH and the big crescendo of the Marilyn Monroe’s stage-play Bombshell the lyrics singing the ideal of keeping the idea of Marilyn alive in the hearts of others after she’s gone.
Book of the Year 2012
Ilario: The Lion's Eye by Mary Gentle
A book I picked up in a pound-shop in Wales got me reading frantically into the night. And with reason, it’s HUGE. About 1000 pages give or take. Not with considerable flaws Ilario, the protagonist is a true hermaphrodite, and if “hir” life wasn’t complicated enough she wants to paint in a time when painting is outlawed to everything but religious icons.
And her mom wants to kill hir.
So with her owner, (she’s enslaved early on) and a retinue of motley misfits including her father returning from the wars she runs off to Carthage and ends up meeting the Queen of Egypt, a master painter in Rome and the men from the country of Chin who come with a junk bigger than anything else afloat. They also have gunpowder.
I like it I think because I can relate to Ilario. Simple as. The constant pronoun slipping, the glances, the feelings of not fitting, of being wide-shouldered and wide hipped and never feeling like you can shake the only thing everyone labels you with before everything else you’ve done.
The plot meanders something awful. But it draws you in, and the dialogue and intrigue and medieval court plotting is as sharp as it is cruel.
You care about the characters in a time when infection killed many before the age of forty, penicillin was non-existent and medicine clumsy at best. Iliaro gets pregnant (“How dare you get my son pregnant!” Line of the book) and the attitude to hir situation is one many people treat transgendered people today. Seen as freaks, whores and monsters, not mothers or artists or anyone real, anyone worthy of praise.
If you find it cheap and fancy a look into the odd I suggest this book. And if you lose interest it can always hold a (fire) door open. See, double the fun!
HM
The Passage by Justin Cronin - Just pipped by Ilario. This epic saga of post-apocalyptic vampires, the end of the world and the little blonde girl called Amy both had be crying in work and cursing the author for writing something so amazing. Go read, and the second instalment is now out too!
Unwind by Neal Shusterman - An interesting take on abortion in this book about American dystopia where teenagers are legally dismembered for spare parts.
City of Thieves by David Benioff - Set during the Leningrad siege in WW2, two Russians are faced with an impossible task to save their hides from the Soviet security forces. The relentless cold and the smashed city loom in the mind of the reader long after the book’s finished.
Gone but Not Forgotten of 2012
Steve Sabol (1942-2012)
Steve Sabol, alongside his father Ed (currently 96 and had the terrible duty of having to bury his child) created NFL Films. And while many people who shrug their shoulders and say “Yeah, so?” the influence the Sabols had on the sport transcends any other sport. Ever.
The heads of the Premiership go to bed each night dreaming they had someone like the Sabols.
These days it seems obvious but back in 1962 Ed obtained the rights to film the NFL Championship game (as it was called then). Using film - a medium the company continues to this day, only WW2 documentaries has more reels of film than NFL films - they made a game that has the watchability of chess something dramatic. Slow-motion replay, tracking the ball, music and score overlays, this all began with NFL Films. They created stories which for many (myself included) is the main appeal of the game.
In the seventies and eighties as the Steelers and 49ers became dynasties the gravelly tones of employed narrator John Facenda created a mythology that still stands today.
Steve also interviewed dozens of players, coaches and owners, many after they had retired. From the notoriously tight lipped Mark Bavaro to the garrulous Barry Switzer who still was worth a sound-bite well into his seventies.
I first heard his name back in in 1997 when Blitz (C4’s football program of the time) interviewed Steve. He called himself a storyteller and a romanticist, creating unforgettable images from over a thousand games, including 46 Superbowls. This year will be the first Superbowl without him, finally succumbing to brain cancer just prior to his seventieth birthday.
One of his last comments before he died was his hope that heaven would be as good to him as his time on earth had been. I agree; it is something we should all hope for when we reach the end of our time, that whatever is up there will be as eventful, challenging and memorable as our time down here.
HM
Neil Armstrong - The first man on the moon back in 1969 finally passed away in August
John Demjanjuk - The man who has been hounded as being Ivan The Terrible ever since the ending of World War II was finally convicted of war crimes in January and sentenced to five years. His ill health and death closes a chapter in history without any sort of satisfactory resolution, causing many to question the point to anything given Demjanjuk’s age, save the belief that on some level justice might have been levied to the appropriate level.
TV Show of 2012
Leverage
Surprise winner of this award, given it has four seasons playing continually on FX and a fifth playing in the US. I knew of the show’s existence but discarded with a slightly superior flick of contempt as just another US remake of a classic UK drama.
Boy, was I wrong!
Leverage is one of the few shows where I can say the US remake is better than the UK original, and not for the obvious reasons. Identical premise, group of ex-criminals and con-artists are approached by wounded third parties to help right wrongs traditional law enforcement won’t touch. Very A-Team, and at times feels like it, with faux explosions, ropy CGI and obvious plot points.
But where the show exceeds the UK version is the interplay between the five main characters. Nate’s drinking problems, his grief over his son, his attraction to Sophie; Sophie’s feelings for Nate and her own demons about grifting, and the three “children”; Hardison, Parker and Elliot who constantly wind each other up. In particular Parker’s isolated childhood that causes her to trust no one, least of all Hardison whom she feels attraction for but doesn’t know how to show it.
Elliot just hits people. J
The humour is spot on, dry at times, hilarious at others (“Damn it Hardison!!!”) and the creators manage to weave enough of an arc to keep people interested over the course of a season despite each episode having similar MO’s. Main example there is the Season 3 arc when the gang have to deal with the ultra-powerful Damien Moreau.
HM
Hit & Miss - Six episode story of a Pre-Op Transgendered hit-woman who learns she has a son somewhere in Manchester and sets out to help the family following the mother’s death to cancer. Spartan in places but had real depth too, unfortunately cancelled as the lead (Chloe Sevigny) admitted she couldn’t stand the UK weather for 6 months at a time and called Manchester “boring”.
The Walking Dead - Season Three opened with a bang, with introduction of Woodbury, the homicidally bonkers Governor, silent katana-wielding Michonne and more walking corpses than your average New Year’s sale. Suspicions were confirmed as Merle reappears (minus his hand) from being left for dead in Season One and the new remit of “anyone can die” is in full swing as two recurring characters from Seasons 1-2 have already died and one has lost his leg. Currently on hiatus until February the season hangs on a knife edge as the two camps (Woodbury and the Prison) learn about each other and the Dixon brothers could be in a spot of bother.
My Own Personal Tale of the Year 2012
Flying Solo
At the end of January I booked a solo trip to New York. The first time I would be flying and staying somewhere on my own without family or friends to prop me up.
Scary to say the least as I don’t handle adversity very well. I don’t exactly go foetal under pressure but it is something I try and avoid and let others burn themselves on. But here I am flying to New York solo, and I have a plane change, stopping first at Dublin to change before the six hour flight to JFK.
The year went like lightning and before I knew it I was getting ready to get to Bristol airport. Everything went fine for an hour, then the fog rolled in, the flight to Dublin was cancelled and I had to get a £120 cab to Cardiff airport to get to Dublin that way. Missed the connecting flight, had to wait until 4.30pm to fly out of Dublin and didn’t reach JFK until 10pm EST. 25 hour journey. I found my hotel with the help of a very nice man who was stuck in the same boat and in NYC on business, we shared a cab and I just hit the ground running.
And I didn’t stop for four days, despite my pulled and protesting hamstrings and my torn left knee ligament (still gives me trouble today).
Fortunately my knee gave way on the last day of the holiday (dread to think what would’ve happened if it had popped on day 1, probably a trip to the ER) so I got my bag and got on the A-Train to JFK. And after a 10 hour stopover in Dublin where I staggered round like a sleep-deprived caffeine addicted zombie got home all aglow according to my Mom.
It’s proved to me that I can do it, only 10 years after my friends flew solo all over the world, and I now have itchy feet to do it again. Next stop San Francisco in 2014!!!
HM
Having the confidence to run my own work-crew. It is happening on a regular basis now; I see my name on the allocation board in black marker and don’t have a panic attack.
The last sentence might be seen as overreacting but I do not like being in charge of people, especially in an environment such as surgery when someone’s life hangs in the balance.
Doing something neat with my hair that allows me to have a lot more confidence when going out socially. It’s not just a “bar and drinks” thing. Being able to do activities where I’m not forced to cover my head is very liberating. The style suits me too.
And that's it. Nothing out the ordinary. Well, nothing "exceedingly" out of the ordinary.
In 2013 it gets even better. The family is already booking trips back to New York in September, and compounding that my football team (Pittsburgh) is coming to Wembley Stadium in London to pay the Vikings on the 29th of that month. Needless to say we have tickets to that game too.
Before that I turn 34 (*sob*), the family is going to Aberystwyth in May and i have a treatment on my shoulders in March. All in all the big events of the year are already cemented, all it needs now is a little of the supporting groundwork done and 2013 should be impressive as 2012.
Easily.
I wrote so much this year. I had two separate courses, one i completed, one i didn't. But i'm not turning my back on learning. I also learnt how to make bathbombs and body scrubs and scented candles and did a rainy saturday endurance trial in November in woodwork where my end results were impressive for someone who'd never picked up a chisel in her life.
I want to learn more.
I want to see my friends in London and the east.
I have to see a speech therapist on the 9th January in London, she's attached to the British Stammering Association and I want to see what she thinks of me and how i speak.
I love being a scrub nurse, but if changes to the NHS Trust i work for continue i think the hospital will become more and more demanding and less and less like a "nice place to work". And my mental health is worth more than that.
So 2013 could be a year of change. But there's nothing wrong with having more than one iron in the fire. I'm 33 years old, i don't settle easily, i have a restless heart and a recently developed hunger for new things.
It may not be easy, but it won't be dull the next 12 months.
As Bruce sings "..take your best shot, let's see what you got, bring on your wrecking ball.."
it has FLOWN!!!
Did it really turn at exactly the same speed as its predecessor? really? I have my doubts, i think it speeded up somewhere around June and didn't stop until November.
But here were are again. My awards of the year. In a year where it rained. and rained. and rained. in fact 2012 is now the wettest year on record for the UK. and our country has been round for quite a while. The sun popped its head in for two weeks during the Olympics and then buggered off and hasn't been seen since. the Christmas, the festival I am writing this in currently has seen rain every day consecutively and at time has been continuous. I don't know how those people in the lowlands are coping. i'm just happy that me and mine live on hills. water rolls down hills. this is good.
But behind the cut are the usual suspects. Some you know and some you don't. feel free to browse, argue, contest. But here they are, in no obvious order:
Event of the Year 2012
The 30th Olympiad
London. England won the dubious distinct of hosting the “Porno” Olympics (as no one calls it, but anything translated to XXX in Roman numerals deserves some toilet humour) back in 2005, a time for much celebrating across the country for, oh, about a day before the tube trains blew up the following morning. Ever since then news reports have followed the traditional British manner of scepticism, scorn and negativity over everything from the construction schedule, security to the big questions of what we do with everything after the whole thing closes. In the end everything came in on time and with the exception of the dodgy security firm pulling out at the last second and having to be bailed out by the military there was very little to moan about as the British Olympians (both able-bodied and not) presented their second consecutive impressive Olympics, coming third behind China and the USA.
The opening ceremony was to many the highlight. Created by Danny Boyle it has some fabulous set pieces including something about the NHS and 5 gigantic suspended rings spitting “molten steel” everywhere in honour of Britain’s role at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution. Events wise it was both the usual suspects and the newbies. Anything sitting down was easy meat as Britain dominated in both cycling and rowing but individual stars like Jessica Ennis in the decathlon and Nicola Adams in the boxing (first for women) gave women’s sports in the UK a desperately needed boost. The more we get girls and women inspiring to be more active and less like the TOWIE brigade the better for everybody. The only negative point of the whole thing was the UK swimming team, who got caught reading their own press-clippings and just didn’t bother showing up. Bummer!
Honourable Mention
Britain celebrating Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee. Marking a reign of sixty years it gave the country an extra day off and a total of four days in a row. Appropriate that the day in question turned into a traditional British summer rainstorm, completely wrong-footing the media who were reamed for providing less-than-stellar improv commentary. And the Duke got a bladder infection as a result. Well he is 91!
Sporting Event of 2012
The 30th Olympiad
This year in sport was only about the Olympics.
And I can happily say that Britain pulled it off. I don’t know what the rest of the world, or even the British public itself was expecting when the countdown began for the games. I know they weren’t expecting the kind of traffic chaos that ensued as every street in the country had to host someone local running with a bloody torch in order to represent something (to this day I have no idea exactly what).
But the opening ceremony was impressive, along with the UK’s medal haul. Britain had a raw deal from the onset having to follow China and their zillions of workers, but somehow we pulled it off and Danny Boyle created something inherently British, particularly the nod to the NHS even as Cameron and his gang are trying to tear it apart.
And what was great was the Paraolympics followed suite, with a fabby C4 campaign giving the athletes centre stage (“Time for the Main Event”) as the less able-bodied got their time in the sun alongside the Bolts and Phelps of the world.
HM
Superbowl 46. Giants beat Patriots for the second time in four years to claim their fourth title. Known in my memory as The Grey Bowl given the dullness of the uniforms and general lack of big-plays on either side. It was a game of two great teams which unfortunately resulted in a lot of feints and jabs and counters but not a lot of big-game action.
Film of the Year 2011
Cabin in the Woods
Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon wrote and directed this back in ’09 but a catalogue of issues (finances and the studio’s stubborn attempt to convert the film to 3D) delayed it until this year. I actually missed it on release and caught it on the plane crossing the pond from NYC in September. Brilliant in concept, Whedon hoped it would be a satire of the recent ‘torture-porn’ genre; it had many people talking about it in work both on ideas and performances. Not least of all Fran Kranz’s Marty, who ranted about puppets before staring in Whedon’s Dollhouse and becoming the ultimate puppeteer as a result.
HM
The Hunger Games - Film #1 of the trilogy cut a lot of the empathic meaning out of the book but still grossed shedloads at the box-office. The “new” Twilight it should make stars of all the major characters and I’m already eager to see Film #2 starring Lynn Cohen (“Mags”) and Jenna Malone (“Johanna Mason”) from Sucker Punch.
The Avengers - Whedon’s ensemble superhero film smashed records like ninepins. Lacking in actual plot it was genuinely funny and smart with some impressive fight sequences and debuting Hawkeye to the big screen (character’s a personal favourite).
Film first seen in 2012
Wheels of Terror/The Misfits (1988)
A movie adaptation of the Sven Hassel books the second title was the American one as the US tried to capitalise on the banter and anti-establishment attitude of the plot of the main characters against their superiors. Set on the Eastern Front during WW2 it is the story of the 27th Penal Panzer regiment (like the German Dirty Dozen, with tanks!) a group of political prisoners, thieves and asocials as they try and survive between the relentless Red Army and their own glory-hungry officers. Staring American B-List actors at the time (Bruce Davidson, David Patrick Kelly, Keith Szarabajka) and cameos by Oliver Reed and David Carradine as Wehrmacht officers it is incredibly disjointed as movies go. No one Nazi salutes, all the formal military drill is akin to the modern US terminology and motion and there are plot holes, continuity aspects and question marks from beginning to end.
So why do I like it?
Because the script isn’t actually that bad. You really care for the Brigade given they have such a raw deal from everybody. Being produced at the end of the eighties with the Russians still being the “bad guys” in the eyes of Hollywood it doesn’t shy away from the awfulness of the war in the East; the machine-gunning of defenceless soldiers, garrotting, tank-battles, constantly changing rules of war and a dog called Stalin. What I noticed early is how all the main characters mention Valhalla (heaven) as a place they’ll all end up eventually, a grim pragmatism that is lacking in many WW2 movies throughout the years declaring we’re all goners so why not make the best of it while we’re here? Cos we can have anything we want in Valhalla. Carpe diem indeed.
HM
In The Valley of Elah (2007)
My poppa picked this up in a charity shop, and he oddly picked up a BAFTA nomination copy (the movie is just plain, minus any promotion and minus the cameo of James Franco which was added later). Tommy Lee Jones has to solve his son’s murder and has his eyes opened to the cost that serving personnel pay in the Iraq/Afghan conflict. Charlize Theron plays a fabulous supporting role fighting her own demons as a lady detective in a masculine unquestioning environment.
Album of the Year 2012
Life In A Beautiful Light by Amy MacDonald
Amy’s second award after scooping the coveted nod for her debut back in 2008. In a thin field for albums this year (I lack the up-to-date musical taste of most Brits) her 12 track third album was found when I was looking for the new Killers album Battle Born. Not a long album, less than 45 minutes of playing time, it hit home with me on two songs; The Furthest Star and Left That Body Long Ago the latter being a poignant nod to the cruelty of dementia. For some reason the album reminds me of Amy Pond’s (Dr. Who) key moments over the past two and a half years, and when the Ponds vacated the show this summer made certain phrases even more emotive.
HM
Push and Shove - No Doubt. Their first original studio album since 2002 is a mixed bag of cool and meh. Needs more playing.
The Truth About Love - P!nk. Latest offering U-turns from her rants about society and people to focus more on her relationship, motherhood and being a grown up. Albeit a shouty grown-up. Trying to get interest to go see her live in 2013.
Album First Heard in 2012
Something for the Rest of Us by Goo Goo Dolls
Released in 2010 to moderate blank-stares in the UK I didn’t know of its existence until I saw a YouTube video about Being Human (Brit TV show) with the song as overplay to Mitchell’s inner turmoil. Bought the album, rather impressed with songs like Home, Still Your Song and Notbroken. Basically the usual Goo Goo Dolls fare about sentiment, love, loss and regret. Very OTT, very American, which explains why the UK crowd don’t go for them.
Song of the Year 2012
The Furthest Star by Amy MacDonald
Amy hits the double. That’s not to say this was biased, the song is good enough to be sung on X-Factor and I’d still buy it (well, maybe…). Surprisingly true to how I feel about my life at the moment, wishing on stars, dreaming, trying to make those dreams a reality. Crashing as the first dreams fail, dealing with rejection, getting up and trying again.
“I’ll be free with what I believe and I won’t sell my soul just to achieve my goal..”
The voice in the back of your head that tells you not to sell out to “them” and remember where you come from, etc. An idea in direct contrast to the TV nowadays pumping fame and stardom like cocaine vapour through the screens, addicting the minds of seemingly everyone.
“And I’ll sing from my heart if you’ll listen to me, everything I do is what I believe”
Be honest. To yourself especially, it’s the only way to happiness in the 21st century it seems.
My favourite line easily being the honest “…nothing stays and nothing sticks when you’re rolling with the lunatics”.
A direct nod to the gang of mad bastards I work with and how we, like the Oakland Raiders, are a group that thinks dysfunction is function and endeavour to become a centre of excellence as a result.
Less than three minutes long, this is a song that when I first heard it I thought, ‘Geez she’s singing about me’. Singing about the fight and the struggle to succeed, and how that journey is often sweeter and more enjoyable than the glory and end-result when you do obtain what you wanted.
HM
Push & Shove by No Doubt - My party song of the year, with an impressive black and white video to boot. Extra help in the vocals by Major Laser.
Don’t Forget Me by SMASH’s Katherine McPhee - Didn’t know she was an American Idol contestant till I’d fallen in love with the song. The finale of the first season of SMASH and the big crescendo of the Marilyn Monroe’s stage-play Bombshell the lyrics singing the ideal of keeping the idea of Marilyn alive in the hearts of others after she’s gone.
Book of the Year 2012
Ilario: The Lion's Eye by Mary Gentle
A book I picked up in a pound-shop in Wales got me reading frantically into the night. And with reason, it’s HUGE. About 1000 pages give or take. Not with considerable flaws Ilario, the protagonist is a true hermaphrodite, and if “hir” life wasn’t complicated enough she wants to paint in a time when painting is outlawed to everything but religious icons.
And her mom wants to kill hir.
So with her owner, (she’s enslaved early on) and a retinue of motley misfits including her father returning from the wars she runs off to Carthage and ends up meeting the Queen of Egypt, a master painter in Rome and the men from the country of Chin who come with a junk bigger than anything else afloat. They also have gunpowder.
I like it I think because I can relate to Ilario. Simple as. The constant pronoun slipping, the glances, the feelings of not fitting, of being wide-shouldered and wide hipped and never feeling like you can shake the only thing everyone labels you with before everything else you’ve done.
The plot meanders something awful. But it draws you in, and the dialogue and intrigue and medieval court plotting is as sharp as it is cruel.
You care about the characters in a time when infection killed many before the age of forty, penicillin was non-existent and medicine clumsy at best. Iliaro gets pregnant (“How dare you get my son pregnant!” Line of the book) and the attitude to hir situation is one many people treat transgendered people today. Seen as freaks, whores and monsters, not mothers or artists or anyone real, anyone worthy of praise.
If you find it cheap and fancy a look into the odd I suggest this book. And if you lose interest it can always hold a (fire) door open. See, double the fun!
HM
The Passage by Justin Cronin - Just pipped by Ilario. This epic saga of post-apocalyptic vampires, the end of the world and the little blonde girl called Amy both had be crying in work and cursing the author for writing something so amazing. Go read, and the second instalment is now out too!
Unwind by Neal Shusterman - An interesting take on abortion in this book about American dystopia where teenagers are legally dismembered for spare parts.
City of Thieves by David Benioff - Set during the Leningrad siege in WW2, two Russians are faced with an impossible task to save their hides from the Soviet security forces. The relentless cold and the smashed city loom in the mind of the reader long after the book’s finished.
Gone but Not Forgotten of 2012
Steve Sabol (1942-2012)
Steve Sabol, alongside his father Ed (currently 96 and had the terrible duty of having to bury his child) created NFL Films. And while many people who shrug their shoulders and say “Yeah, so?” the influence the Sabols had on the sport transcends any other sport. Ever.
The heads of the Premiership go to bed each night dreaming they had someone like the Sabols.
These days it seems obvious but back in 1962 Ed obtained the rights to film the NFL Championship game (as it was called then). Using film - a medium the company continues to this day, only WW2 documentaries has more reels of film than NFL films - they made a game that has the watchability of chess something dramatic. Slow-motion replay, tracking the ball, music and score overlays, this all began with NFL Films. They created stories which for many (myself included) is the main appeal of the game.
In the seventies and eighties as the Steelers and 49ers became dynasties the gravelly tones of employed narrator John Facenda created a mythology that still stands today.
Steve also interviewed dozens of players, coaches and owners, many after they had retired. From the notoriously tight lipped Mark Bavaro to the garrulous Barry Switzer who still was worth a sound-bite well into his seventies.
I first heard his name back in in 1997 when Blitz (C4’s football program of the time) interviewed Steve. He called himself a storyteller and a romanticist, creating unforgettable images from over a thousand games, including 46 Superbowls. This year will be the first Superbowl without him, finally succumbing to brain cancer just prior to his seventieth birthday.
One of his last comments before he died was his hope that heaven would be as good to him as his time on earth had been. I agree; it is something we should all hope for when we reach the end of our time, that whatever is up there will be as eventful, challenging and memorable as our time down here.
HM
Neil Armstrong - The first man on the moon back in 1969 finally passed away in August
John Demjanjuk - The man who has been hounded as being Ivan The Terrible ever since the ending of World War II was finally convicted of war crimes in January and sentenced to five years. His ill health and death closes a chapter in history without any sort of satisfactory resolution, causing many to question the point to anything given Demjanjuk’s age, save the belief that on some level justice might have been levied to the appropriate level.
TV Show of 2012
Leverage
Surprise winner of this award, given it has four seasons playing continually on FX and a fifth playing in the US. I knew of the show’s existence but discarded with a slightly superior flick of contempt as just another US remake of a classic UK drama.
Boy, was I wrong!
Leverage is one of the few shows where I can say the US remake is better than the UK original, and not for the obvious reasons. Identical premise, group of ex-criminals and con-artists are approached by wounded third parties to help right wrongs traditional law enforcement won’t touch. Very A-Team, and at times feels like it, with faux explosions, ropy CGI and obvious plot points.
But where the show exceeds the UK version is the interplay between the five main characters. Nate’s drinking problems, his grief over his son, his attraction to Sophie; Sophie’s feelings for Nate and her own demons about grifting, and the three “children”; Hardison, Parker and Elliot who constantly wind each other up. In particular Parker’s isolated childhood that causes her to trust no one, least of all Hardison whom she feels attraction for but doesn’t know how to show it.
Elliot just hits people. J
The humour is spot on, dry at times, hilarious at others (“Damn it Hardison!!!”) and the creators manage to weave enough of an arc to keep people interested over the course of a season despite each episode having similar MO’s. Main example there is the Season 3 arc when the gang have to deal with the ultra-powerful Damien Moreau.
HM
Hit & Miss - Six episode story of a Pre-Op Transgendered hit-woman who learns she has a son somewhere in Manchester and sets out to help the family following the mother’s death to cancer. Spartan in places but had real depth too, unfortunately cancelled as the lead (Chloe Sevigny) admitted she couldn’t stand the UK weather for 6 months at a time and called Manchester “boring”.
The Walking Dead - Season Three opened with a bang, with introduction of Woodbury, the homicidally bonkers Governor, silent katana-wielding Michonne and more walking corpses than your average New Year’s sale. Suspicions were confirmed as Merle reappears (minus his hand) from being left for dead in Season One and the new remit of “anyone can die” is in full swing as two recurring characters from Seasons 1-2 have already died and one has lost his leg. Currently on hiatus until February the season hangs on a knife edge as the two camps (Woodbury and the Prison) learn about each other and the Dixon brothers could be in a spot of bother.
My Own Personal Tale of the Year 2012
Flying Solo
At the end of January I booked a solo trip to New York. The first time I would be flying and staying somewhere on my own without family or friends to prop me up.
Scary to say the least as I don’t handle adversity very well. I don’t exactly go foetal under pressure but it is something I try and avoid and let others burn themselves on. But here I am flying to New York solo, and I have a plane change, stopping first at Dublin to change before the six hour flight to JFK.
The year went like lightning and before I knew it I was getting ready to get to Bristol airport. Everything went fine for an hour, then the fog rolled in, the flight to Dublin was cancelled and I had to get a £120 cab to Cardiff airport to get to Dublin that way. Missed the connecting flight, had to wait until 4.30pm to fly out of Dublin and didn’t reach JFK until 10pm EST. 25 hour journey. I found my hotel with the help of a very nice man who was stuck in the same boat and in NYC on business, we shared a cab and I just hit the ground running.
And I didn’t stop for four days, despite my pulled and protesting hamstrings and my torn left knee ligament (still gives me trouble today).
Fortunately my knee gave way on the last day of the holiday (dread to think what would’ve happened if it had popped on day 1, probably a trip to the ER) so I got my bag and got on the A-Train to JFK. And after a 10 hour stopover in Dublin where I staggered round like a sleep-deprived caffeine addicted zombie got home all aglow according to my Mom.
It’s proved to me that I can do it, only 10 years after my friends flew solo all over the world, and I now have itchy feet to do it again. Next stop San Francisco in 2014!!!
HM
Having the confidence to run my own work-crew. It is happening on a regular basis now; I see my name on the allocation board in black marker and don’t have a panic attack.
The last sentence might be seen as overreacting but I do not like being in charge of people, especially in an environment such as surgery when someone’s life hangs in the balance.
Doing something neat with my hair that allows me to have a lot more confidence when going out socially. It’s not just a “bar and drinks” thing. Being able to do activities where I’m not forced to cover my head is very liberating. The style suits me too.
And that's it. Nothing out the ordinary. Well, nothing "exceedingly" out of the ordinary.
In 2013 it gets even better. The family is already booking trips back to New York in September, and compounding that my football team (Pittsburgh) is coming to Wembley Stadium in London to pay the Vikings on the 29th of that month. Needless to say we have tickets to that game too.
Before that I turn 34 (*sob*), the family is going to Aberystwyth in May and i have a treatment on my shoulders in March. All in all the big events of the year are already cemented, all it needs now is a little of the supporting groundwork done and 2013 should be impressive as 2012.
Easily.
I wrote so much this year. I had two separate courses, one i completed, one i didn't. But i'm not turning my back on learning. I also learnt how to make bathbombs and body scrubs and scented candles and did a rainy saturday endurance trial in November in woodwork where my end results were impressive for someone who'd never picked up a chisel in her life.
I want to learn more.
I want to see my friends in London and the east.
I have to see a speech therapist on the 9th January in London, she's attached to the British Stammering Association and I want to see what she thinks of me and how i speak.
I love being a scrub nurse, but if changes to the NHS Trust i work for continue i think the hospital will become more and more demanding and less and less like a "nice place to work". And my mental health is worth more than that.
So 2013 could be a year of change. But there's nothing wrong with having more than one iron in the fire. I'm 33 years old, i don't settle easily, i have a restless heart and a recently developed hunger for new things.
It may not be easy, but it won't be dull the next 12 months.
As Bruce sings "..take your best shot, let's see what you got, bring on your wrecking ball.."