The Lego is strong in this one…

I watched the original trilogy of Star Wars films last weekend. I enjoyed them, considering they were made nearly 30 years ago, they hold up quite well. I can certainly understand why people like the film series so much.

Now, out of interest more than anything else, I’m going to get the other three Star Wars films. It’s fairly obvious that these three aren’t cinemas greatest triumph, but I’m interested to see how the story starts. And to hear Ewan McGregor’s comedy accent!

I’m also looking at Lego Star Wars for the Xbox 360, and will be hotly anticipating the forthcoming Lego Indiana Jones!

Uxcellent Adventure

When we drove to London last week to pick Iain up from Heathrow, we arrived about an hour and a half early. Iain’s flight was due at 2pm and we’d hit next to no traffic on the M1. Hanging around the airport was no option, what with the extortionate car park fees, so I mentioned Uxbridge was fairly close to the airport. Why don’t we have a gander at its shops?

None of us are strangers to this area of London. My aunt and uncle (mother’s sister) lived in nearby West Drayton for years, i’d grown up visiting this part of West London as a kid. We came off the M4 and decided to drive through West Drayton and Yiewsley eventually ambling into Uxbridge. None of these places had changed much, though West Drayton itself seemed much less run down then it was previously.

When we got to Uxbridge, we were amazed to find a large town complete with big high street and two shopping centres. In all the years of my aunt & uncle living nearby, not once did we ever venture into Uxbridge. We had to make do bloody West Drayton, nearby High Wycombe or even the not-very-interesting Black Park, when all the time a mid-size town was on our doorsteps!

They’ve long since moved from the area - my uncle worked at Heathrow - and now reside in Hampshire, where they’re only too happy to show us all the nearby towns. Maybe they were ashamed of Uxbridge? I don’t know why, It’d be West Drayton I’d be more bothered about…

Locomogire

Iain has come back from China and has arrived bearing gifts.

Among the many bottles of Chinese rice wine were loads of dodgy DVD’s and CD’s. The thing is, the quality of them is great. You certainly get a better kind of copy from China! One thing that has made me laugh is one of the CD’s, a (non-official) compilation of Guns n Roses Use Your Illusions 1 and 2. The Chinese translation for the song titles has got mixed up to silly proportions. You don’t need to necessarily know any GnR songs to know the spelling mistakes…

We picked Iain up from Heathrow on Wednesday and it seems only now his body clock is getting back to european times. He’s off again this weekend, to Bulgaria, but with only a two hour difference it shouldn’t prove that much of a problem.

He pulled out all of the Chinese coins and notes in his pocket and showed me two Yuen notes and a coin, saying that it was enough for a 600ml bottle of beer. He also said that the money I was holding in my hand was only worth about 14p here!

Back in Notts, me and Iain went out for some drinks with Jim, Matt and Nath in Sherwood. I’ve not seen either of those guys in well over a month, and much was made of my newly cultivated facial hair - probably down to Matt and Jim’s total failure to grow any stubble! They also mentioned the likeness between me and Iain now - hair wax, earring and beard - something that hadn’t been lost on my Dad when he said the same the previous day. Time for another image change!!

I picked up the new Family Guy DVD yesterday. It’s the first episode of Season Six, but it’s basically ‘Family Guy does Star Wars’, and its 45 minutes long. It’s the closest I’m going to get to any new Family Guy DVD material what with the US writers strike slowing things down somewhat.

Problem with this DVD (called Blue Harvest) is that I’ve never seen any of the original Star Wars movies. Never. People always seem surprised when I say this to them. So I decided to order the trilogy of films from Amazon. Only £14 - half what I’d pay in the shops. I don’t want to watch the Family Guy spoof and miss half of the jokes.

This DVD was also the special edition version, which came with - among other things - a Family Guy t-shirt. The size was Large, but mindful of the difference between sizes of here and the US, it still fit me. Large over there is XL over here. It’s still a bit creased though.

Pro Cons 2008

I’ve had Pro Evolution Soccer for a few days. I had it lent to me on Monday from a mate at work. It’s a good game, it’s always nice to play any football game on the 360, but for the first time It doesn’t seem an essential purchase.

I had intended to get this game for my birthday, but my interest in it has cooled somewhat since I’ve had it to play with. One disappointment is the face mapping feature when editing players. The Xbox Live camera seems to have a problem when adding my face into the game. The colours are all wrong. My skin appears grey, and colours appear inverted. My red Royal Mail top I was wearing the other night showed up as yellow!

I gave up on that, as the face I put into the game looked weird, but even without that it isn’t hard to be a little disappointed. The continued lack of licences in the English league, the awful online service, the replays that seem to be missing frames! It’s easy to see why many people have gone for Fifa this year. Konami seem to have rested on their laurels a bit, while EA are always making good the faults of previous versions.

I had Fifa 08 for about two weeks, before the mad point in my life when I decided to sell the Xbox, then have second thoughts. Now I’m looking to get some of my previous games back in second-hand form. Crackdown and Test Drive are pretty cheap now, and I’m even looking at Fifa 08 at some point.

After my little rant about Redknapp/Allardyce/Newcastle, it seems they’ve dumbfounded almost everyone with their managerial choice. Kevin Keegan is the new boss! I’d love it if i’d put some money on that happening, love it!

Happy as ‘Arry

I’m quite pleased that Harry Redknapp has spurned the chance of taking over at Newcastle. Not because I’m a closet Portsmouth fan, but because this was a story cleverly constructed by the media.

As soon as Sam Allardyce got the sack, the papers were mentioning that Redknapp was the front runner. The following days they were telling us the finer details of his ‘contract’ - his private jet to commute from Dorset, millions to spend on new players - and even today we were told how Redknapp was in London, not talking to possible transfer targets, but talking to a guy closely connected to Newcastle owner Mike Ashley (Daily Mail).

Whats more, the Daily Mail printed in their paper today that Portsmouth will play Sunderland tomorrow with Joe Jordan in charge! Earlier today, sense prevailed and Redknapp decided to stay at Pompey. It gets me how much control the media - or rather, the newspapers - have in football.

I don’t recall hearing anything from Harry Redknapp regarding the job up until today. With the England job, he was very vocal on how he’d be keen to take charge. With the Newcastle vacancy, he hasn’t said a word. Yet the papers take it upon themselves to place people in the job. Tabloid journalism is cheap and nasty, thank god sense prevailed and ‘Arry stayed at Portsmouth.

He’d have been onto a loser had he opted for Newcastle, for one reason - he isn’t Alan Shearer. Newcastle fans are intent to see Alan Shearer manage their club. In much the same way that there are many (many!) Forest fans who’d love to see Nigel Clough manage at the City Ground, the geordie fans have their own guy devoid of league experience.

Shearer would be a bad move, he’d fail and then all the memories of his time at the club would be tainted. Anyone remember Glenn Hoddle and Ossie Ardiles at Tottenham? Two club legends who failed when managing their club. For every Newcastle fan willing to listen to reason, you have someone “who’d give anything to see Shearer manage”.

Redknapp has done well to welcomed back by Portsmouth fans after he managed their arch rivals Southampton. He came back, got given loads of money to spend and has steadied the club in the Premier League. He’d have been an absolute fool to quit all that for about six months at a ‘big club’ with ‘great fans’ that would’ve hounded him out once the results took a turn for the worse. He’d be rich, much like Sam Allardyce is now, but unemployed and hated by the Pompey fans.

As it is, he stayed safe and stayed on the south coast. A good move!

Away from the Premier League, Forest batter Leyton Orient and return into the top two. Two Grant Holt goals (yes…the words ‘Grant’ ‘Holt’ and ‘goals’ do go together!), one from Kris Commons and one from youngster Matt Thornhill saw us comprehensively beat the O’s and let the rest of the league know that we mean business!

And away from footie altogether, I’ve done a u-turn on my Xbox 360 and have decided to keep it. A change of heart, which happened because the 360 has some fucking great games out now and I’d be a fool to get rid!