Writing

‘Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain’t heard nothing yet!’

Al Jolson’s ad-libbed opening line in The Jazz Singer famously announced the era of the talkie with the novelty of synchronised sound. With noise on the scene, intertitles were no longer necessary as a means of driving narrative. Characters could tell the story with their own voices. Jolson could express the joy of sound with all his dynamic, newly discernible vocal cords.

Continue reading “Tuner and the Sound Film”

I recently attended a wedding event where I didn’t really know anyone there aside from the main folks. As a collective, the house members ain’t so great at weddings. At least as a cohort, ‘cause we’re just not used to attending weddings in general. But when lacking in gifts of oration as a particular house member does *cough*, that doesn’t stop you from filling your mouth not with speech, but with copious amounts of food and non-alcoholic beverages. Hooray. Now here’s an ode to that principle, this time riffing/ripping off Metallica’s Enter Sandman. As you do.

Continue reading “Hi Eat Drink Bye (AKA Enter Stomach)”

That fella down there’s ya boi Patrick. This is an artist’s rendition of that scene in the SpongeBob SquarePants episode ‘Grandma’s Kisses’, where Patrick hoovers up a whole load of cookies in one go. It’s pretty memeable, so you should be able to find the OG image online with a quick Google. Although in this version I’ve exchanged cookies for a roughly drawn afternoon tea setup, and the individual hoovering up all the tasty tuck is your humble narrator. ૮₍ ˃ ⤙ ˂ ₎ა

Continue reading “Free Afternoon Tea”

A fair bit of chicanery went down on the day of May 12^th, 2026. A film appeared as the rarest choice in that final section where you can look at the rarest choices after you’ve completed all the entries. But the thing is, this film hasn’t been released yet, nor does it even have a speculative year of release. For all intents and purposes, this film doesn’t exist. Yet apparently it scored 20 points. Rubbish. Hokum. Tomfoolery of the highest order. How do I know all this? I’m a major league Ryan Gosling nerd, that’s why.

Oh, I’m referring to the Guardian Film Reveal puzzle on the Guardian app. Just thought I should clarify.

Continue reading “A Forensic Film Reveal”

I recently got round to watching the BBC series and thoroughly enjoyed it. Great screenplay, well-drawn characters and some nice sets too. The episodes also reminded me of another series I really enjoyed watching a while ago, and both shows have a central character with a fairly unique view of the world around them, even though the ‘a’ word isn’t used specifically used in the Jane Austen retelling.

Continue reading “The Other Bennet Sister, Extraordinary Attorney Woo and the Autistic Heroine”