It's Only A Movie

• Reel Life Adventures of a Film Obsessive
• Mark Kermode

Hello to Jason Isaacs.

Now, if you don’t know where that greeting originates then read on and buy the book. If that phrase brings a smile to your lips then just buy the book, if you don’t own it already.

Mark Kermode is a film critic who has achieved a certain amount of fame from working in the shadow of that broadcasting giant Simon Mayo.

I've been listening to Kermode and Mayo’s Film Reviews on 5 live since 2006. Saturday mornings, doing the cleaning, just aren’t the same without them. If you’re a fan of the show then you've no doubt heard snippets of conversation about: Blue Velvet, Dark Waters, the insignificant bullet and the confrontation with The Queen (in the guise of Helen Mirren), but here they are in full printed form. Of course Mary Poppins, Mamma Mia! and The Exorcist (“The greatest movie ever made”, Mark Kermode, Radio One) also get a mention. Surprisingly that last film only gets a name check on 20 pages, Kermode showing admirable restraint. Even Henry Rollins gets a mention for being the person to interview Werner Herzog after the aforementioned insignificant bullet incident.

If you listen to the show, if you've seen Mark Kermode on The Culture Show and you enjoy his film reviews just read the book. I'm sure Jason Isaacs has his own copy.

Related Links
Mark Kermode’s film blog
The Kermode Awards 2007
The Kermode Awards 2008
The Kermode Awards 2009
The Kermode Awards 2010

The God Delusion

• Richard Dawkins

Surprisingly I knew at the end what I knew at the beginning. I don’t believe in God. After reading the book it just made me think more about atheism and my lack of faith. This is something that Dawkins mentions; that atheists don’t speak out enough.

As someone who was raised Church of England a visit to a church was just for special occasions, weddings and christenings. I didn’t attend my first funeral until I was well into my thirties, and even then it was just the casket and the curtains in the chapel in the cemetery. No big deal. We didn’t go to church as a family. The only time I went to church was with school before the Christmas break.

One thing the book covers is that children shouldn’t be labeled; a jewish boy, a catholic boy, a christian boy. They are just boys of jewish, catholic or christian parents. When they’re old enough to understand then they can make up their own minds. Pick what they want to believe, if anything at all. It’s like trying to force them to like a particular type of music, film or literature.

At least the U.K. isn’t as fanatical as America when it comes to religious belief. Reading about The American Taliban is enough to make your blood run cold.

Edgardo Mortara is someone I had never heard of. To think that a 14-year-old girl could baptise a jewish boy, because she fears that he’s going to die and go to hell, he then becomes christian and the catholic church take him away from this jewish family. It’s just the strangest tale of ‘tag you’re it’ that I ever heard.

Something on Penn Radio that has stuck with me was Penn Jillette talking about his first child being conceived via IVF treatment. The fact that couples, who can’t have a child naturally, go through this process and when they find that they’re pregnant thank God for it. The specialists, physicians, doctors, nurses had nothing to do with it! God didn’t even get his usual shout-out at the conception.

It seems that Penn Jillette is writing a book about atheism. It’s strange that I can’t remember him ever mentioning it before? Perhaps he’s a closet atheist.

Having read this book I'm thinking of reading more books by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens on the subject of atheism. But really what more could be said!

This is the first book I've read using the ReadMore app on my iPod touch. It certainly kept me motivated enough to finish the book.

When Amazon.co.uk started DVD rentals I immediately signed up. It was better than renting one disc per week from the local video shop for £3.50, having a limited stock, picking it up on Saturday and taking it back on Sunday.

Amazon sold it’s rental business, or LOVEFiLM took it over and fortunately they didn’t screw it up. It’s more or less just the same as it was and I still get a small discount on DVD purchases at Amazon.

Recently I decided to up my membership from 4 discs per month, 2 at a time, to unlimited, still 2 at a time. Hell I even paid for a year up front to get a few months free. I had over 50 discs on my list and they just didn’t seem to be going down. Last week I managed to watch 3 rental discs in a week. They turn around the discs pretty fast.

Earlier this year I sent a question to their support team asking exactly how their priority system was working. Their response:

We will always try and dispatch discs in relation to the priorities you give on your selection list. Our allocation process by necessity will look at the availability of stock as well as which titles you would like to see first. The selection of which title to send you is based on those two factors, and is not affected by when you placed a title onto your list.

If it so happens that we can’t send you out a title from your highest selection we will always send out the next best alternative from the list that you have chosen.

Today two discs are ready for dispatch. One was in my high priority list, all well and good, the other was Speed Racer which must have been about number 26 on my medium priority list. Of the discs above that only one was flagged as being ‘Short wait’. Strangely I only added Speed Racer last week, maybe the week before, but it will be dispatched head of discs that have been there for months and months.

If, as they say, discs are dispatched relative to the stock availability, they must have thousands of Speed Racer discs for rental. There’s no other rhyme or reason for it.

Does everyone have trouble with utility companies or is it just me?

At the beginning of last month I received a letter from British Gas, my gas and electricity supplier of choice, saying that they were sad to see me go and was there anything that they could do to change my mind. This was news to me. I phoned them and they said that E.ON had taken over my gas, and probably my electricity, supply. They asked if I had spoken to anyone on the phone or had anyone approached me in the street. No they hadn’t. They said that they would contact E.ON about getting my supply returned. This could take up to 3 weeks.

The 27th came around and a pleasant chap from British Gas phoned saying that they were still having trouble contacting E.ON but not to worry they were still looking into it. British Gas followed this up with a letter saying that they were still working on it.

Yesterday I received a letter from E.ON addressed to ‘The Occupier’ with my correct address and postcode. The letter had an account number and was saying that the date of my next bill and meter reading was changing. Obviously E.ON hadn’t taken the hint and were still determined to supply my gas and electric. I phoned them, the person on the other end had trouble with the account number and I explained that they had taken my gas and electric supply from British Gas without my consent. He puts me on hold and checks it with someone. He comes back and says that he’s sorry, they won’t be charging me for the gas and electric I've used and that my supply will transfer back to British Gas. I asked how this could have happened and he said that it happens all the time.

I don’t know if someone comes around to read the meter and reads the wrong meter or gets the wrong serial number off the meter or what, but someone in my block was hoping to transfer to E.ON.

I'm amazed that if I phoned British Gas they'd want my name, first line of my address, postcode, phone number and my 12 digit customer reference number before they’ll do anything. But E.ON can just botch a number and that’s it no cross checking nothing. You would think that if I ever wanted to transfer my supply that I'd have to contact both parties involved instead of just one.

British Gas have been great, Les from the customer complaints department has been keeping in touch, he phoned mid-morning saying that E.ON were now transferring my supply. Another chap phoned at lunchtime saying that it had all been sorted and that British Gas would put it all in writing. So I hope that’s the end of it.

I don’t think I'd leave British Gas judging from the poor service you get from the competition. If you’re getting good service from a company stick with them. You may pay a little more but you get what you pay for.

Just filled in the council tax form which qualifies me for a 25% deduction. Each year they ask the same question, “Are you still living on your own?”. As if only having one chair and one cup isn’t proof enough.

People, Let Me Get
This Off My Chest

I read a Q&A with KISS' Paul Stanley at Spin.com and the interviewer mentioned a compilation called “Let Me Get This Off My Chest” (Megaupload link).

It’s 70 tracks of the between song raps/banter that Paul has done at KISS concerts over the years. Cities are name checked, alcohol consumption and screaming are both encouraged.

I recognised a few excerpts from KISS Alive and an odd one or two that must have been from his solo shows. After seeing KISS in Manchester in May you do appreciate what a great front man Paul Stanley is.

Yes, they’re back! That’s John Gruber and Dan Benjamin on The Talk Show, now part of the multimedia empire that is 5by5 Studios, discussing Macs, iPhones, coffee and environmentally friendly garbage disposal.

During the period of radio silence I even managed to listen to all 30 episodes of season one again. Was the break really only two weeks… it seemed more like three.

I don’t quite know what exactly started all this, possibly just cleaning my filter coffee maker each evening and seeing all the coffee oils stuck to the inside. You'd think that all those brown stains must affect the taste. And the fact that the once white mesh filter basket is now completely black, not that it was used solely for it’s intended purpose, I just use it to hold a carefully folded paper filter.

This Kenwood BrewMaster has lasted over 4 years but a new way of brewing coffee had to be found.

I'd seen a few videos online of baristas using a Hario Ceramic V60 Dripper, with a suitable kettle and thought that at least it would be easy to clean. But I'd need the kettle, dripper and something to rest the dripper on as my cups are too big. Then I saw videos of the Chemex coffee maker being used and that seemed ideal. A quick Google later and I'd found Has Bean Coffee, a coffee equipment and roasters who are just down in Stafford. So I ordered a Chemex and a pack of filter papers.

In the past I'd heard that if you want the best coffee then you have to buy it freshly roasted and grind it yourself. There are a few coffee shops in town but I don’t know of any that roast beans themselves for sale to the public. Has Bean Coffee to the rescue. They sell freshly roasted coffee beans and also have a subscription option. You choose if you want coffee for 3 or 12 months and they send you a quarter of a kilo each week. My first batch arrived in the post on Saturday. The label on the bag denotes its origin, the cup profile and when it was roasted.

Rancilio
Rocky Grinder

Of course the week before I received a Rancilio Rocky Grinder from Has Bean and 500 grams of beans. There’s no point having a grinder and nothing to grind. I went for the doserless model after watching the Seattle Coffee Gear Crew Review video on YouTube. There was no point having the dosing model as the mechanism would just waste coffee if I just want one shot. As they show in the video, it only works well if the ground coffee container is full and even then it seems you need 2 and bit doses for a portafilter. It works well if you have people visiting and don’t want to hear the grinder all the time. Surprisingly both the doser and doserless models are the same price.

After you've had a chance to sample the batch of coffee, either filtered, as an espresso shot or as part of a latte, Stephen Leighton posts a video review of it on In My Mug. He reads comments from the previous week that people have posted to the site and discusses the coffee that you have received, where in the world it’s from, the climate, how it was processed, everything you'd need to know. Episode 87, which just focuses on the Bolivia Machacarmarca De Berenguela coffee, is so informative and entertaining that it would make anyone want to drink coffee… and smoke a pipe.

There are just two problems with all this. Stephen is sniffing coffee grounds, tasting brewed coffee and describing all these flavours, my sense of smell and taste must be so poor that all I can do is tell that it is in fact coffee. Maybe I just need more practice and over the next 3 months I’ll get it. The other thing is, am I going to be able to keep up receiving 250 grams of coffee each week? Only time will tell.

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• Jeremy Keith

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• Inside the National Forensic Academy, the World's Top CSI Training School
• Jarrett Hallcox and Amy Welch
• Forensics/True Crime