I have never, for one, been inclined

To decline a nice bottle of wine

But to be any good

A receptacle should

Have a non-zero volume, Herr Klein!

If you are working hard to get a number of contracts signed, and you line them up for relevant parties to sign, and get them out in the correct order etc,.......could you be said to be getting your docs in a row?

If you were engaged in the illegal sport of cock fighting, but then realised there was a loophole where it wasn't illegal to use mallards instead.......could you be said to be getting your ducks in a row?

In the strong form of the pun:

"A pint of plainsong is your only mantra".

In, what is perhaps, the weaker form:

"A pint of plainsong is your only chant".

Why is every book in the sci-fi section now a never ending sequence of fantasy novels? All of them are called:

"A Title of Mismatched Nouns".

Or more, generically:

"An 'X' of 'Y' and 'Z'".

This is all clearly an unsavory straight to video like steal of other people's good titles, in particular George RR Martin!

"A Web of Lime and Hugenots"

"A Swamp of Mist and Toothpaste".

"A Quagmire of Vowels and Bestiaries"

"A Wind of Card and Lobsters"

Come to think of it, I'd be tempted to buy that last one, but only because it sounds like it might work on a brioche bun.

 Moanday  - "Oh no, not work again - where did the weekend go?"

Chooseday - "I am definitely going to get some work done TODAY - I am an adult, I will get out of my jammies - I choose to get things done!"

Whensday - "Ahhwhwhwhwhw...pwwwwp....When will this week be over?"

Blursday - "Wait, what day is...is this the weekend?"

Freudday - "I need therapy to get through the rest of this week.....oh wait, it's over now. Hallelujah!".

 From our Health and Science Correspondent, Chip Van Brawling.

2020-09-29 Taoiseach Micheal "BibdaBidaBibda" Martin is set to announce radical new legislation to allow Irish Mammies to rigorously enforce draconian lockdown measures, following it's introduction in secret Dail sessions, later this evening.

The new measures, described by one insider as "holy terror" are designed to flatten the Covid curve, in a last ditch attempt to stop infection rates rising, before the last hospital bed in this benighted Republic finally gives way under the combined weight of the 3,522 ICU patients and their respiratory equipment currently residing in it. The Acting Chief Medical Officer Ronan Glynn, has been warning, since 247 patients ago, that the bed was "imminently, incipiently, just about to, yes, any second now, fall apart, wait for it, now...just when they add that next IV drip, there...no, yes! Wait, one more...".

Asked to comment further, the senior civil servant in the Department of Health indicated that, under the new powers, Irish Mammies could be summarily deputised to engage in "enhanced interrogation techniques" of any individuals they had reasonable suspicion of "actin' the maggot out on the streets and/or brinin' shame, or similar unwanted or unwarranted notoriety of any kind on their, or other mammies, houses or households". 

Social "meedgeya" evidence of "makin' a holy show of yourself" could lead to immediate clips about the ear, scuttin' the hind legs off of an individual, or in extremely egregious cases, a "swift root up the hole for themselves" of any offenders. Asked if such measures were unconstitutional the Windows 7 Civil Servant replied, cryptically "Go ask Donald Trump, Poindexter".

In some cases fines of "you can do your own feckin washin' from now on", all the way up to "no more of that hanky panky under my roof" could also be imposed, although it's not clear what methods of payment could be utilised for these, since Irish Mammies certainly are in no position to take them via "the Pay Pal", "the rev-lute", or other card based systems.

While some opposition TDs have expressed concern at the new measures, describing them as "draconian", others have merely quibbled, saying they were actually more "procrustean" than draconian. So: "nyeh".

Chant of the Barbie Dolls attempted to contact a spokesperson for Irish Mammies, but was told they were "up to their eyes, runnin' around after this country all feckin' day, and no help from anyone....get out of my feckin' kitchen before I stab yeh in the eyes with a whisk, yek feckin eejit - I'll 'comment' yeh....".

I've been seeing a lot of those Sun Life commercials lately, what with the working from home malarkey that's going on. You know, the frank and uninhibited explorations of mortality that would put Bermann to shame, along the lines of "when I'm gone please don't put me in a cardboard box and burn me".

I've a new advertising strap line for them, to be delivered by an avuncular grandad, possibly a vicar, getting a cuppa from him lovely missus of 40 years, pottering about in the garden shed:

" 'It's your funeral', they said. And you know, they were right!"
[Smiles, toasts his cuppa, slurps, winks].

He who detected it, ejected it
He who berated it, created it
He who denounced it, bounced it
He who caught it, wrought it

...and another thing...

You know the only "X-Box" we had to play with when we were kids was literally an "ex-box". Yeah, you heard me - it was a thing that used to be a box, with like, stuff in it, which was no longer required to hold the, like...stuff.

That's what WE got to play with in the back garden.

Of course, I say "garden" but it was more like a tenement slum yard...

From our Non-Dublin correspondent, Spuds O'Tractor

Area mother Noleen Guiden today issued a press release in which she bemoans the woeful inadequacy of the local potato harvest. Mrs Guiden, 56, mother of 4 and wife to well known local area man Dinny "The Bomber" Guiden, was highly critical of the current batch of potatoes from local provider Festy "Festy" McLoughlin's.

"I can't understand why, ever since the election it's just not possible to get decent potatoes", her statement runs. "It would be one thing if it was just down to the weather, but it can't be the only thing. Ever since the results of 8-Feb became clear, you can't get a decent 4-stone anymore. I'd to throw half the last batch away, they were that rotten; and of the rest the quality was so variable, between too floury, too waxy, too large, too small, sure you don't know what to be doing with them - roast 'em, chip 'em, boil em, skins on, skins off? Come on it's an absolute mess - no wonder the health service is banjaxed and we can't even have homeless anymore [sic]. How is anyone supposed to cook or work with such lamentably variegated material?".

"This type of criticism is particularly unwelcome as local providers are looking at the potentially devastating effects of Brexit on the potato markets", Festy "Festy" MCloughlin re-joindered on twitter angrily this morning after reviewing the statement.

An angry band of twitterati trolls has since managed to re-capture the spiralling narrative and steer it back towards a more critical approach to Mrs Guiden's comments. "If you look at the evidence, Noleen 'Nags' Guiden hasn't bought a bag a spudz she was happy with in her life - and that's since before the civil war", one historically accurate poster observed.

Mrs Guiden's supporters have come back strongly in a constructive vein, wanting to know if anyone has any recipes or methods of coping with mixed bag of floury and waxy potatoes at the same time. This has caused a tangential controversy of it's own, as many users joined in to point out that was an entirely off-topic subject, best handled through the medium of Instagram or similar, further dividing opinions, sometimes drawing battle lines right down the middle of families.

In the meantime, as this controversy continues to rage and polarizes this shattered community, only one thing is certain: the search for perfect potatoes continues.

Based on true life events.

Our Science Correspondent Chip Van Brawling reports:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2e-gOeN3DM

Indepdent TD Wannadem Healy-Rae today rounded on the people of Kerry, claiming that "as God above" controls the weather, He is clearly punishing the people of Kerry by repeatedly lambasting and smiting their coastal towns and villages, and wrecking the blossoming tourist industry, not to mention making it difficult to get out and drink and drive properly.

When questioned further, the deputy claimed that "Sure, 'tis only logical and reasonable, in all scientific truth". The fact that God has chosen to repeatedly inflict the most significant storm damage over the past 5 years on the South West, he claimed, must mean that God himself is angry with the good people of Kerry.

"It isn't clear just now", claimed the deputy, "whether 'tis their lifestyles, or the heathen ways of the permissive society that has unfortunately taken hold, even in Kerry; or indeed if He's just upset that maybe we're infringing on his copyright of the phrase 'for dine is de kingdom'. But whatever it is, he is using the weather as a tool to express his displeasure with them - this is an outrageous example of Divine eco-terrorism, at it's worst. I'll be communing with God forthwith so He may reveal unto me his reasons; but I'll be giving him a good piece of my mind, on behalf of the people of Kerry (that I represent)".

I asked the deputy if he thought that perhaps the people of Kerry might think of adopting a different God, one that didn't smite so much with the weather and stuff, but the deputy proceeded to rant so much about false gods, blasphemy and so on, it wasn't possible to tell what he was saying.

I wonder if God is actually just really browned off with the people of Kerry for who they are choosing to elect as public representatives?

1. Let’s say that a person professes and genuinely does actually believe in supernatural entities. If that person is absolutely CERTAIN of that, that’s really idiotic -  100% certainty doesn’t exist. Anyone who says so is saying something idiotic. And is therefore unfit for office.
2. Again, let’s say a person really does believe in a god, and they are certain of its existence – then that person’s religion will, by definition, control what they do as public representatives – if a religion says that a person can go to hell because they “support same sex marriages”, then it would be unsound for that person to support any such provision. In other words, a convinced believer in god cannot represent their constituents, without, in some part, risking eternal damnation, if, as they say, they are convinced of god’s (and hell’s) existence. And they are therefore unfit for public office because by definition they cannot be expected to behave rationally for the benefit of their constituents. You could argue that at least their behavior and attitudes would be predictable, so you would know exactly what you get when you vote for them - that's something I suppose.
3. A person who says they have absolute religious conviction or belief in god might just be lying because they think it will get them votes – who knows what actual beliefs they hold, if any at all. That makes them completely unfit for public office.
4. Let’s say there is a person standing for public office who “believes” but is at least smart enough to admit that there is always uncertainty and they might be right or wrong but they certainly “feel like” there is “something” more than just the material world and they ascribe that to a “god”. Now you can’t be at all certain what this person stands for or means when they say anything – their religious convictions may, or may not influence their decisions when acting or legislating – because they have nothing but a hazy sense of “something maybe out there up on the clouds with a beard”, you will never know at what point they will want to take whatever that religion is seriously. Will it be when legislation about abortion or contraception kicks in? Or maybe only around divorce, or on the wearing of hijabs? Who knows? Such a person who cannot present a consistent view of the world will behave completely unpredictably when it comes to legislating on any number of issues – and is therefore unfit to hold office.
5. Let’s say a person takes an agnostic stance i.e. no one can know for certain if a god exists, or if a god doesn’t exist – so it’s best to just say we can never know. That is intellectually indefensible – if you are making claims about evidence, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that any type of god or gods exist. That person is unfit for office because their wishy washy nonsense position belies a complete ignorance of scientific or even basic logical reasoning. That makes them unfit for public office, where they are required to weigh up evidence based policy decisions – an agnostic position on something as basic as religion means they preclude themselves from ever making any evidence based decision! Again, there is always the chance that the agnostic is striking this position specifically because they think it will garner votes from “believers” and “non-believers” alike – such a person is unfit to hold office too.

To be irrelevant.

What, after a hard day, the Grim Reaper relaxes on, in his (or her) favorite armchair? Or perhaps scatters playfully about a living room, to give relaxed sense of style and comfort, while matching the curtains and bringing a room together?

Now I'm not even bothering to concoct Keats and Chapman stories. And I appear to be talking to myself. Send help.

In a column on Sunday, said Myers,
"The girls and the jews, they're not tryers!"
His trope ridden screed
Would be scurrilous indeed
Were the Times not yet filled with liars

Keats and Chapman, as was there wont, were debating the weighty political matters of the day, in Mulligans of all places.

Keats bemoaned the lack of political will, spine, leadership, venting his spleen in a diatribous manner, and other metaphorical organs of complaint. The world, he believed, in particular old Ireland, was in a state of chassis.

"They're all set to feathering their own nests, these days, the politicians", he complained. "De-rigeur is to be all too concerned with their own welfare not the public good; and going-be-the-wall in their own sleveen ways to achieve it. Sure it's practically in fashion".

"Ah", opined Chapman, "that uniquely Irish character trait, flaw indeed - the cute hoor".

"Yes, exactly", agreed Keats, "that, but much worse - an even higher level of it persists in this country - it's gone well beyond how bad it used to be".

Chapman supped the froth off his Smithwicks, and paused briefly before noting, "I take your point - nowadays it's all haute couture".

Keats left, refusing to stand a round.

Yoda says:

“Fear is the path to the dark side.
Fear leads to anger.
Anger leads to hate.
Hate leads to suffering.”

Flann says:

“Beer is the path to the dark side.
Beer leads to hangover.
Hangover leads to ache.
Ache leads to suffering.”

Put his wife in a box to throw rocks at her.
Since ‘the box’ was at Ascot
And ‘the rocks’, multi-carat
It’s most definitely not a non-sequiteur!

In a shock revelation today, The Onion, the United State's finest daily rag, has revealed that "Area Man", featured in many of it's articles over the years, is in fact, a bona-fide super hero, with special powers.

Dale Neunerowski, 43, first discovered his powers after being bitten by a radioactive Area, but kept them hidden for fear of being attacked by a pitch-fork wielding mob of closed minded oafs, ostracised by a cynical and uncaring public, or having a super villain exploit his family and loved ones as potential weaknesses.

"At first, it just felt like my natural ability to judge areas by eye was better than normal, but I slowly realised that with a lot of work, my entire mensuration related perception faculty was becoming exponentially enhanced. I could estimate the length, area, volume and mass of random, irregularly shaped features and objects with extraordinary precision, from even the most fleeting of glances!".

However, tragedy struck soon after he gained his powers, when, reeling in confusion from the strength of his new super-ability, Mr Neunerowski accidentally overfed his goldfish, which then died as a result. "All my super abilities", he says, with a catch in his voice, "couldn't save Goldie from a school boy mensuration error".

Asked if he uses his powers for good or evil, having revealed himself to the world, Mr Neunerowski replied that, despite the temptations to use his extraordinary gift for personal advancement, he has decided to commit himself to a life of dedicated service to his local area community, in particular in the area of animal welfare, and interior decor. "Wherever an inaccurate or shoddy measurement is taking place, I'll be there to correct it; wherever a builder, supplier or shop-keep is passing off incorrect measurements to cut corners or make illicit profit, I'll be there; wherever a person is mildly musing about how wide an alcove is, and whether or not a Byzantine tryptytch will fit in it, I'll be there to help".

COTB was intrigued to know if Mr Neuner wore a special costume while engaged in Area Man related activities - we were told, amid some laughter, that this was something of a tired cliché that super heroes are always battling against. "Sure, if you're Spiderman and you need your web gizmos, wear some apparatus if that helps, but in my line of Super heroing, it's just not necessary."

When we contacted The Bureau of Weights and Measures for a comment, a spokesman said "The Bureau of weights and measures takes it's role as enforcer of standards very seriously. If citizens are aware of any deviations from standard, please contact the police or your local office of the BoWaM. It is extremely inadvisable for individual citizens to take these matters into their own hands, and it can be highly dangerous, resulting in damage to property and/or loss of life, not to mention incurring penalties up to and including the death penalty, and a purple-nurple. The only approved weights and measures officials are federal officers, and no one should be listening to, or acting on the advice of private citizen nut-bags running around in capes".

Area Man Fact File:

Super power: hyper-munsurationability
Arch enemy: near luminal velocities, where length measurements become tricky.
Weakness: singularities, where normal laws of space, time and distance break down.
Favourite Film Moment: Stonehenge scene from 'This is Spinal Tap'
Pet hate: The use of the 'acre foot' as a unit of volume.
Favourite unit of measure: the amp (= that constant current, which, if maintained in 2 infinitely long conductors of negligible cross sectional area held 1m apart in a vacuum, would exert a force of 1x10^-7 Newtons per unit length of conductor).

Would you describe an impotent Support Analyst as suffering from a severe Prod outage?

Sep 5

UK and US set to invade Iron age as you tube footage shows grisly mass murders took place
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/exclusive-slaughtered-bodies-stripped-of-their-flesh--a-gruesome-glimpse-of-ironage-massacre-at-uks-largest-hill-fort-8798680.html

US and UK forces were at full standby alert last night, as new evidence appears to conclusively show that gruesome Iron age massacres took place in Britain. MOD and Department of Defence sources were said to be scrambling desperately to juggle the impact of these new revelations, along with also preparing to invade Syria. “We are stretched far too thin”, one insider was quoted as saying.

President Obama has repeatedly stressed that “the red line in the sand must not be drawn in the blood of people, even if already dead, having been massacred, even if that sand is in the United Kingdom of, er.. ...Scotland... and elsewhere”.

Asked about the technical difficulties of not only travelling into the past, but shipping the large amounts of men and materiel required to mount a convincing ground assault, Vice President Joe Biden was dismissive of the level of effort required. Referring to recent work at CERN he said “We’ve paid billions of dollars for the Large Hadron Collider for just such an eventuality. By creating a pin point singularity with the possibility of a mini-black hole being generated, it only remains to harness the gravitational potential energy of the black hole in a frequency modulated phase inverted flux capacitance relay, in helio-synchronous orbit, and accelerating that to near-luminal velocities, to create the appropriate wormhole entry and exit points”.

When pressed further on the potential for grandfather paradoxes, and the quantum implications vis a vis the many world hypothesis, he replied these were mere details. “We can’t , and the international community can’t simply stand by and watch these massacres unfold; we need to intervene to pre-prevent a holocaust of the already born-died. If you could go back in time and kill Hitler, wouldn’t you?” In what many observers believe to be a tour de force performance at the UN later, Joe Biden went on to demonstrate how a Podolksy-Rosen bridge was feasible, and that the invasion would undoubtedly be an immediate success, since there were no aircraft carriers in the Iron age, giving the US an undoubted advantage for once.

Meanwhile in London, parliament is to be recalled yet again, as David Cameron stakes his already shattered reputation on gaining renewed support for an invasion of the Iron age site in southern Britain. Insiders were quick to point out the many differences with the Syrian situation: “While Syria is a long way away and worried constituency MPs are concerned about the relevance for the oiks in their home towns of Syrian affairs, no one can doubt the relevance of massacres occurring in our own country” one official said. “Plus", another official added brightly, "as we will only have to travel in time, since the massacres occurred in Britain, there is no spatial dislocation being involved, so we expect significant cost savings over having to send our troops and material to a place like Syria, which is a really long way away. The Prime Minister feels most MPs will not tolerate home grown massacres and feel sure support will be forthcoming from Parliament when it’s recalled later this week”.

One woman, Alison Steadworthy, a genetic descendent of one of the victims from whom some remaining DNA was collected, has already spoken of the atavistic race memory trauma she now believes has marred her life and that of her family. She surprised David Cameron outside his Chipping Norton constituency as he was on his way to Chequers with his family, and protested his lack of action. The Prime Minister took time to speak with the Ms Steadworthy, 28, of Ketteringnodland, BERKS, agreeing that he would do everything he could.

No spokesperson from the Iron Age could be reached to comment on the outrages.

COTBD Editorial

We disagree with President Obama’s decision to Invade the Iron Age, but we do not doubt his sincerity.

Yet again we are poised for war and invasion – this time to a far away and mysterious land many of us have never even heard of, never mind visited – the Past. Yet with what moral authority do we, in the international community waiting lounge area, impose the wills, dictats, health and obesity issues of modern democracy on the people in those faraway lands? President Obama and now Prime Minister David Cameron argue we do so “with the iron fist of reason, enlightenment, compassion, humanity, humility and the greatest military force the world has ever seen”. Not only is there proximate cause in the form of  brutal Iron age dictators murdering their own people, but the potential for chrono-terrorism by Iron age failed states is vast, they argue – what if people in the past decide to sell the UK to the Normans  and never bother to fight to get it back – the knock on effects could be damaging at home and abroad – the smoking gun in this case, could be the a vast steaming plume emanating from delicious pots of Bouillabaisse, simmering in kitchens up and down the UK, a thought too frightening to contemplate, for the Twizzler toking diabetic overweight brain dead population of oiks everywhere.

We cannot disagree they make a compelling, compassionate and sincere case – however, we at Chant of the Barbie Dolls disagree with their methods. Too often have the foreign adventures proved too costly – both in terms of our men and women in the armed forces, our fiscal rectitude, and in having to put up with the sanctimonious outpourings of the unskilled middle class, gum flapping, Royal Right Wing Pamphleteers armchair generals inhabiting the moister crevices of the glossier Sundays. Mr. Aaronovitch, we have your number! Diplomatic efforts must be redoubled, sanctions put in place: this road may lead to war, but not at all costs.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2013/0122/breaking16.html?via=rel‏

Publican patricians voting to call for their patrons to have special licence to drink-drive.

Knowing Ireland/Kerry, shortly, you'll be able to buy drink-drive dispensation licenses/stamps from the council. 50 EUR - stocious; 25 EUR - twisted; 10 EUR - had a few; 5 EUR - may as well have stayed at home. 

 The stamps will then go on to be forged on a massive scale by racketeering dissident republicans. As an anti-forgery measure every household in the country will require a metering system to keep track of the stamps, for which we'll have to be taxed to fund, although the company the government appoints to install them, set up by a pal of the Treasurer to Fine Gael, will do quite well out of it. Just to be on the safe side a new tax, the "Universal Stocious Charge" will be added to all health insurance to cover the impact of all the new additional accidents on the roads. 

 Quite soon after that it will be revealed that the licenses are being manufactured in state run catholic institutional workhouses in which there is systemic and horrific child abuse; then we'll find out the stamps also contain toxic CJD horse brains that gives you cancer if you touch them, or turn you into a Fianna Fail voting zombie if you lick the back of them. The bottom will then precipitously fall out of the drink/drive license-stamp market. Disposing of the toxic stamps will create a national wave of NIMBYism, as we look for places to bury the stamps in landfill. Luckily Kerry county councillors hit on the idea of burying them next to traveller's halting sites, where the half life of 1 million years for the breakdown of the toxicity they reckon a) wont be noticed and b) isn't a problem anyhow as traveller's don't vote. 

 The charge for getting rid of the toxic stamps into landfill will be so massive that most people wont be able to afford it, so everyone will just wander around at night fly tipping them where ever they can, thus despoiling the environment so much that the tourist industry collapses.

Ultimately we'll all be left sitting on a pile of worthless, carcinogenic, horse brain-meat "drink drive dispensation" stamps, that basically give you license to kill yourself (maybe that's the REAL reason for them) produced by child slave labour in catholic gulag torture camps, being over taxed for the privilege, with even the tourist industry in ruins, and a population of walking dead zombie Fianna Fail voters. 

 And they think they have problems now with no one coming to their pubs - wait till all their best customers are dead. 

 "What need you being come to sense/but fumble in a greasy till...." etc etc.

It occurs to me that in some senses "Event Horizon" owes at least SOMETHING to the TBH, wouldn't you say?

As a film, TBH is indelibly printed in my memory - especially Perkins' "floba-loba" gurgling demise. And as well - you forgot to mention the short lived Black Hole ice pop, and the utterly ludicrous notion of a black hole looking like a swirling bath of dandruff flecked molasses draining down a plughole.

And as for TBH cards - I recall a certain Mr. M being more than miserly with any cards that so much as contained a circuit of robot (Bob, Vincent and Maximilian in that order), thus stifling the ability of the true collector/connoisseur to enrich his completeness as a human being in the struggle towards card-set fulfillment. Thanks for that!

I still haven't gotten number 89 or whatever the last one is, so if anyone wants to donate it to my otherwise complete collection, feel free.

The first thing to say is this is a spoiler alert - if you go and see "Prometheus" it will spoil your day. More strictly speaking, I will be ridiculing in as much as my limited powers of withering sarcasm allow what laughingly passes for a "plot" in the "film", "Prometheus". The use of "scare quotes" could get bothersome here, so for safety, just assume everything has them.

If living on planet Earth has taught us nothing else, and it hasn't, it is a grave mistake to "eagerly anticipate" anything: school summer holidays, birthdays, a new flavour of chewits, 2000AD's "project X", and in this specific case, Ridley Scott's much anticipated very definite (not "sort of" as some reviewers would have you believe) prequel to the 'Alien' franchise. I say 'franchise', in the sense that it's often used to refer to films with, and there are no hard and fast rules here, more than 3 installments, but also in the sense of the lowest rent Milly's Cookies or Pirate Pete's Cornish Pasty's franchise - redundant ex-bankers sinking their remaining cash into a sure-fire passing trade, lacklustre, bought-in, train station commuter-stooge filling stodge kitchens.

For the avoidance of doubt, this will be a negative review.

Personally when I go to a restaurant, I don't like to review the menu in advance - I like to be surprised. When I see a trailer for a film that I want to see, or strikes me as interesting, I deliberately avoid any "making of" documentaries and I eschew reading other people's reviews, and I most certainly don't google it to read up on what it's about - why bother going to see it then? Just in case.......you know.....I start to eagerly anticipate or anything. And so it was with "Prometheus" - the involvement of Ridley Scott and Michael Fassbender (to my mind, one of the most, and I KNOW what you're thinking, 'magnetic' actors around - the only working actor that seems to have any of the vibe of '70's De- Niro or Keitel, or big-screen presence at the moment) and the trailers certainly whetted my appetite. Unbeknownst to me, my avoiding reading anything about the plot was entirely successful because in fact, there isn't one.

Ok, so to cut to the chase - I'm not even going to bother with the usual conventions about who the actors are, the rough structural outline of the plot, comments on the technical proficiency of the special effects and comparative analysis of the acting performances, erudite comments about the self referential reuse of lines, shots and plot events from the previous films in the "franchise" (sigh), high level views of placing this in the canon of science fiction/schlock horror, and in the canon of Ridley Scott's work, I'm just going to come right out and say it: WHAT THE FUCK RIDLEY?

I can't remember where - but I DID read - Ridley Scott isn't even (by his own admission) a "fan" of science fiction. It's all about, like, yeah man, you know, the script, it has to be the right project blah blah fucking blah. A strange thing for the director of "Blade Runner" and "Alien" to say, you might think. Perhaps, but "Alien" was actually a horror film, not really science fiction, so in fact he's only ever done one science fiction. I'm including "Prometheus" in that.

The film opens with what might be a world in the light of alien suns (perhaps a bit reminiscent of the 2001 so called Jupiter landing sequence) or might be.......Earth? Before the advent of life? Why would I say that - one well ribbed looking alien consumes some vile X-files looking black slime as a space ship departs, promptly disintegrating into the bargain, as, in a CSI like internal shot, what looks like DNA splits up and disintegrates too, but from which strands emerge, and wash away in a flooded cataract..........(that's a waterfall, let me save you the bother of looking it up).

Later (in the year of our lord 2089, that's just 67 years from now), a mission funded by a dying/dead billionaire heads to the stars on the say so of a couple of archaeologists who claim humanity is being invited by alien looking giants to visit them, and this part isn't clear, somewhere inside/outside the galaxy (I mean who cares, inside/outside the galaxy, it's a detail - I know you think I'm nit-picking, but bear with me) because the aliens are the ones that "created us". Hmmmmmmm.

After 2 years in suspended animation, everyone re-awakes on arriving at the moon of a gas giant (wow, how technically scientifically correct) and the mayhem ensues. The first place they randomly look on the planet, a strange structure is found and everyone goes wandering off alone to meet whatever penetrative-phallocidally induced grisly comeuppance best befits their first utterances on awaking from hyper sleep. I mean: not even a Star Trek like diagnostic, or planet wide scan to detect the structures. Oh, yes, that's right, Micheal Fassbender's severed head maniacally reveals they are EVERYWHERE on the planet later. Oh yes, he's a robot, he's a robot. Yawn. Oh, and yes, the atmosphere is 3% carbon dioxide, which means you can't just breathe it, oh no. That could kill a human after a few minutes of breathing it. So says the scottish doctor.  Wow, I wonder how many NASA advisors it took to work that into the script. It's nice they are making it sooooooo realistic for us.

A severed alien head does have a diagnotic run on it though - which chillingly reveals....dahn dhan DAHNNNNNN....the alien's DNA and human DNA are identical. And I don't mean CHEMICALLY identical or anything, I mean - exact match in OVERLAY. It was that kind of graphic where one DNA "pattern" get's picked up and laid on top of another and they both flash like, red, and stuff. Who writes that kind of software......? The future seems replete with people willing to spend their time generating "red alert" and "self destruct" avionics and overlay graphical interfaces. Maybe I should get into that now.

Anyhow, errr, wow....? I think?

Meanwhile people are being infected with bits of alien slime in champagne by robots called David (awwwwww), rah! rah!, people are having sex, people are being killed, people are being taken over by aliens and killing other people, people are being impregnated by people infected by alien slime so that worms come out of their eyeballs (cooooool), people are having squids surgically removed from their impressively flat tummies which get staple gunned up again, fly-boy captains are suddenly not going to let this crap get back to Earth, people that have only spoken one line in the entire film are again piping up to let us know they are with the captain, 'dead' billionaire Charlize Theron daddies are coming back to life to have pedicures done and find the secret of eternal youth from our new alien overlords, and other people we didn't even know were on the ship are suddenly on the - actually rather small so how is all this happening without anyone else spotting it and wondering - wow, isn't there a lot happening on such a small ship - ship.

Eventually, and mercifully, but not soon enough, everyone is killed, including revivified aliens, and suddenly very large recently delivered squid babies, except Noomi Rapace. Who promptly leaves with Michael Fassbender's severed head, for who knows what perverse purposes, on a commandeered alien space ship for pastures new.

That's it then - anyone got any questions?

Err, yeah, actually. What. The. Fuck. Was. That. Supposed. To. Be? Someone please explain.......

Supposedly.......

1. 4 billion years ago before the advent of life on Earth, large giant aliens "seeded" the waters of Earth with their own DNA from a willing "volunteer". Presumably he wasn't up to seeing how Ridley Scott would treat of this story, or knocking one off into the waterfall - his was the wisest decision methinks. And never mind that 4 billion years ago Earth was a lifeless nightmarish hades-like miasmic soup of volcanic, meteorite bombarded brimstone, with maybe some free water but who knows? It certainly wasn't just a tad chilly, with a hint of rain, warranting the use of an alien cloak.

2. 4 billion years of evolution later..........and it just so happens that humans evolve from that proto slime with exactly the same DNA as these aliens. Hmmmmmm. That's really not the way it works, even on a lay-person level.

3. Somehow, throughout human history, these same giant aliens, THEMSELVES completely unchanged over 4 billion years, but presumably who have been checking in every billion years or so on the progress of evolution on planet Earth, just to see if anything approaching intelligent life had emerged, these aliens have caused various civilisation and peoples to create identical looking murals for archaelogists to discover and conveniently mis-interpret as "invitations" to the stars.

Although, it wasn't an invitation to the alien's luxury crib, oh no, it was a military bio-weapons installation. That's a bit odd.

4. On arriving with mistaken said invite, humanity in the form of a Scholls sponsored expedition, finds all the aliens were about to launch an attack, using bio-slime, on lil'ol' Oith. Aww, why you wanna go an duu summin lahk thad nahhhhh? Oh yes, "they created us" (4 billion years ago remember) and now they want to "destroy us". Sometimes, Fassbender portentously opines, you have to destroy to create. Yes, that's it, they changed their minds. Well, it happens, doesn't it?

Maybe they kept visiting the ancient Mayans, pointing up to the stars and saying things like "I don't see why it's always us making the effort in this relationship - you know - you could come and visit us too sometimes, and see our really new neat bio-weapons installation we built - it's really cool you know and we spent ages tricking it out - why wont you come?".

Those Mayans - always with the "ohh, you know we'd like to, but the kids are sick, and we have that, err, thing you know, sacrifice, we need to go to....look we promise we'll call you......".

Eventually an alien just gets the message you know - "they don't like us". Yeah, with your blue eyes and muscly six-packs, and advanced god like technology that doesn't change in 4-billion years.

5. And JUST when the aliens decide - right we've had enough, we're going to stockpile weapons and FIRE them at the Earth to rid it of current life, and replace it with something better (and who knows, maybe that's already happened a few times) then what happens - well wouldn't you know it - the bio slime turns on them all and kills them, JUST before they can initiate the launch sequence. Well whaddaya know.

Typical.

I kid you not, as near as dammit that's what the plot is supposed to be. And, I'm making massive interpolations here, I'm trying to make sense out of the vast incomprehensible nothingness in-between the ears of whoever wrote this dross.

I mean, even IF you say "oh you idiot, the disintegrating alien wasn't on earth 4 billion years ago, it was just a few million years ago when homo-blah blah blah first appeared, they were responsible" it does nothing to improve the time line or the plot.

I'm all for suspension of disbelief - ok, it's 2089, when the best possible advancement I can imagine is going to be V562 of the iPhone; ok, so they have (possibly, it's never clear) intergalactic travel and suspended animation - it's a sci-fi film - I'll roll with that.  Ok,  it's a small ship, and (just like in the execrable 'Event Horizon') all sorts of weird and wonderful things are happening and Damascene conversions occur with no one the wiser, fine: worse things happen in Shakespeare.

But ALL the above overall plot nonsense. Give me a break (but not a broken arm). I mean this would ONLY make sense if some sort of "Intelligent design" bollox was being put forward as an explanation, that humanity had only existed for a few thousand years as a result of experimenting, but highly temperamental aliens who didn't quite get the god-like treatment they felt was their just desserts from the idiots they created, even after having pointedly warned them of the death and destruction that awaited them from the stars for displeasing their alien overlords, and so decided to eradicate them, but yet the script writers or editors or director or producers had, for some inconceivable notions of shame and fear at harking back to 'Alien Versus Predator' and/or "300 years of Darwinism"(1) decided to try and get by without actually ever mentioning it as a concept or introducing it into the film......oh for Pirate Pete's Pasty's sake.....heat me up some 3 day old cheese and reconstituted onion PUR-lease......

Do us a favour Ridley - keep your 69 year old, past-it beak out of science fiction, and every other honourable genre of film, and go back to making "sense" in TV commercials - it clearly best suits your remaining talents.

Prometheus had his liver eaten daily by an eagle for stealing fire from the gods until he was freed. Seems like a small price to pay for never having to have endured this space junk.


NOTES

(1) The mission biologist, who is the only person with the temerity to invoke "Darwin" in the film is symbolically mouth-fucked by a "yes-it-really-IS-meant-to-resemble-a-phallus" alien. It's not obvious from that description, but he does also end up dead. In a second, brilliant, sideswipe at geology, the self confessed money grubbing-gold digging (sic) geologist, present for who knows what the hell reason, that tries to help out his biologist companion, has his face sprayed/jizzed with alien acid, and becomes the spider-walking homicidal dead, only to get his Glaswegian head crushed by a moon buggy. So much for science then: that should have Dawkins' eyes watering, send the right message to those mealy mouth bio-geo-scientists that insist on spoiling the party with their "evidence", and have the creationists just rolling in the aisles.

In a startling development, Facebook, the social net working web site, admitted this weekend that one in 6 posts on the site with almost a billion members, is now being generated by a bloke on an extended holiday in the far east.

Went to see "The Tree of Life".

Visually very impressive, and at one point, very reminiscent of scenes in 2001 A Space Odyssey, and had me sold for a while (despite being quite clichéd).......but ultimately, very long winded, and I'm really not sure about what I reckon the conclusion was - started off with a good premise but it ended quite wishy-washily....hard on the knees but I was inclined to wait it out).

A LOT of people left the cinema. There was a lot of guffawing as well. Maybe they thought they were in Transformers.

I now recall that "Thin Red Line" was exactly the same in being visually great but ultimately failing as a film, as opposed to a piece of cinema!

Still, Malick is to be commended I suppose - how many people can put what is essentially an experiment in cinema into a multi-plex?

Plus, when you compare it to the impenetrably obscure (and overwhelmingly boring) "Inland Empire" (David Lynch), you can actually follow it and muddle something out of it. And it at least wasn't tedious....

Chapman for a time had a very substantial and successful agricultural machinery sale, hire and repair business out be-Kinnegad, inherited from his late great-uncle, a strong-farmer from West-Meath, who died suddenly from an ovine-related illness that's well known to both you an me.

Satanists.

Keats and Chapman, having abandoned short trousers and school blazers when they were mere nippers in the quondam of their nonnage for the hallowed halls of the University of Life, always regretted their early educational curtailment, and so, late in life decided to undertake getting their honour in Higher Course Leaving Certificate English, and enrolled in an adult evening educational program up be Kevin Street for the purpose of advancing their minds and cultivation, late bloomers, as it were.

Late one night, whilst burning the midnight proverbial, Keats bemoaned the quality of some of the poetry they were being forced to study. "If I have to read that 'In the time of the breaking of the nations' one more bloody time, I'm going to fling Gussy Martin and 'Soundings' right out the window", he opined, yawning. Chapman roundly abused his short sightedness thusly: "But it comes up every year in the exam - it's well worth studying - guaranteed question...." he said, pausing momentarily with a sudden dawning realisation.

Keats lay down his book by his students lamp, and gently returned his chair to all it's fours from whence he'd been gently swinging back in his yawn, all the while eyeing Chapman, whose face was slowly morphing into a deeply aggravated "Aw here" expression. "Well", said Keats, "I suppose that would make it a Hardy Perennial, wouldn't it?". When the results came out, Keats got his honour, but Chapman was non-plussed by his B.

7 reasons why "reservoir Dogs" is a masterpiece of cinema, and it's similarity to Shakespeares' "King Lear".

1. It looks and sounds really cool, and since we're talking about CINEMA that's highly important. Also it's in 70mm, so it has to look good/cool to come off well. The black suits, the language, the guns especially, even Mr. Oranges apartment which was being redecorated. "Superfucking cool".

2. Claims that's it's unoriginal are not valid: nothing is really original as every movie made can slot into a genre, and all movies are just rehashing old ideas. All art is that really, the originality in any art, if it's present, comes in the way the old material is presented to the audience, and what slant is actually put on the important themes. With reference to Kubricks 'The Killing', RD is much better and really owes nothing to that except that everybody gets killed except for one guy, and he gets caught. There is in one sense a great similarity between Woos "A better tomorrow 2" in the way everybody wears the black suits during the heist, but that's not plagiarising or anything. It's just a tiny element which is in one way being rehashed. Again there's no question but that RD is so much better than ABT2 that it defies belief. But the last 15 minutes of ABT2 does contain some extremly well worked and choreographed violence.

3. This is the sundry category of the list: all of the following were superlative about the film:
Editing: there is not 1 second too much or to little in the film, one learns all that one needs only when necessary to understand the story or only when it's needed to heighten tension or for some dramatic purpose. One also learns a lot during the film through the medium of flashback, but again only when it suits the purpose of the film.
Acting: esp Tim Roth, Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen, Steve Buscemi. Dialogue: extremely tense, often hillarious, and reflecting a proffessionalism in the thieves not seen in any previous film that I know of.
Cinematography: ties in with what I said earlier about the film looking good.

4. Regarding common objections/criticisms that some people have about the film i.e:
A) It's very violent/bloody.
B) The 'cutting off of the cops ear' and torture scene are too disturbing.

I would employ the old standard arguments in both of these cases: you don't have to watch it if you don't want to; if an individual is diposed to kill, torture, injure or hack someone else to death, seeing a film is not going to persuade them otherwise and certainly wont persuade them to do it; a film maker can't be bound by the hypothetical considerations of some special individual's craziness, no more than an architect or civil engineer can be held responsible if someone starts shooting people with a rifle off the top of a building they designed and built.

I should also point out that, in fact, RD isn't actually all that violent. Sure people get shot, but that happens in almost every film you see. What people are really objecting to is the fact that Mr. Orange bled to death on screen and the scene where Mr. Blonde tortures the cop and cuts off his ear. In actual fact you don't even see the ear being cut off and while it would appear that the director takes a very neutral role in the story simply depicting the act, it's very very clear as to what way he wants us to consider these actions (see the points below in realtion to the similarity with King Lear) i.e the actions of a sick and deranged individual, but one who can dangerously masquerade quite naturally as an apparently normal person.

For doing a good and realistic job of portraying someone bleeding to death a director gets slammed for being too violent. On the other hand, so called cartoon-like violence isn't acceptable because it trivialises the effects of violent actions and leads people (whoever they are) to believe that you can just get up and walk away from car crashes, gun-shot wounds etc. To attempt to censor out all violence from film or any other medium would be futile, diastrous and doomed to failure. Credit where credit's due as well: in this day and age, with sufficient TV news channels to take your pick of live wars from around the globe ("AND incredibly no one gets hurt") it's actually quite a skill to make violence look distressing. Think of the Deer Hunter and the famous Russian Roulette sene. Most people remember that as a very disturbing piece and it was a credit to Michael Ciminos brilliance that, just a couple of years after the fall of Saigon when horrific TV images would still be washing around societal memory he could produce, artificailly, something so powerful. The same with Tarantino: you can see people being shelled live on TV and he manages, within the bounds of a convention which everybody knows is not at all real, to distress people in his depiction of a violent act. That's talent.

5. Most people dont see enough dross to realise that RD is a masterpiece, but if you see enough standard run-of-the-mill Hollywood (and other) films, you get to know that most are rubbish and rehash the same old plots as different vehicles for brand new stars created as artificially as new pop bands and for exactly the same reason. Witness the number of sequels produced every year from Hollywood. There's one thing the film industry rarely forgives: it is cripplingly afraid of commercial failure. This of course stems from the 'Heavens Gate' incident which succeeded in bankrupting United Artists. After that, movies were made in a very different manner financially, as all of the studios said: "that will never be us". This fear Hollywood has of commercial failure punishes originality and individual vision and flair and anything which has not been seen before because 'it's too risky, we might loose money on it - go for the tried and trusted formulae which made cash the last time and do it again'. This was excellently satirised in Altmans 'The Player' where every new movie has to be either a sequel or a mix of the elements of previously sucessful movies ("it's kind of Pretty Woman meets out of Africa"). The reason why RD was highly critically acclaimed but lots of the public were a smidgeon upset by it, is because critics tend to see large numbers of films whereas general members of the public might not, and as such, critics are more likely to spot and original film in amongst the dross. Now this isn't just idle speculation on my part. Tarantino is on record as having said that one of the reasons he managed to get RD made was that people in Hollywood need to be told what's good and what isn't, because they're afraid to make up their minds. When he strolled into this situation as a highly opinionated film buff, who had nothing to show for his hobby but a highly developed opinion, it was like the sheep dog arriving at the sheeps party in that Gary Larson Far Side cartoon.

RD has broken the mould of the heist movie genre, and that hasn't happened since Ciminos' 'Thunderbolt and Lightfoot'. In the very ordinary bland and banal world of entertainment the heist movie, with a good few honourable exceptions like Lumets' 'Dog Day Afternoon', 'Thunderbolt and Lightfoot', 'The Italian Job', is one where the convention to follow runs like this: getting the right guys together for the job, practice and planning, the execution and the getaway. All the time we're up for the baddies by vitue of seeing things from their point of view. The archetype for this is of course 'The Italian Job'. RD also has a permutation of these elements but in a very original format, thanks mainly to the editing and screenplay. There's no need for any more heist movies, the genre, with the production of RD, has served it's purpose.

6. The characterisation is brilliant. The robbers aren't just the ordinary run of the mill baddies who are actually goodies because we see things from their perspective: they are highly proffessional. Note the number of references to proffessionalism made by Pink and White (Pink: Am I the only professional here ? White: What you're supposed to do is act like a fucking professional. Pink: You're acting like a first year thief!). They are all ruthless, and in one case psychopathic, individuals who nevertheless take completely different personal, and lets be blunt about it MORAL stands when it comes to being forced to make important decisions. White, who has 'tagged' at least 2 cops earlier in the day, defends a man whose probably almost dead anyway, with his own life, because he wont stand by and allow Joe 'to make this mistake'. Blonde has the complete trust of two mafia bosses and is completely loyal to them, yet he's a 'sick maniac' (this point is addressed elsewhere); Pink is obviously a very sharp individual (see below), yet he describes his 'wising up' as getting into armed robbery, which results in his almost getting killed, and probably ending up in prison for a very long time (having at least shot a cop earlier). These are examples of the complications of the characterisation which makes them all the more interesting.

7. RD is in fact a deeply moral film which, on a thematic level, paralells many of the major themes and incidents in Shakespeares 'King Lear' (KL).

Johnathan Miller once said that his greatest fear was pain inflicted for pleasure. Looking at all of Tarantino's work, and King Lear, there are characters who engage in torture for their own satisfaction. There's an almost identical character that pops up in RD (Mr. Blonde), True Romance (TR) (the mafia hitman who beats Alabama to find where the cocaine is), and Pulp Fiction (PF), (Zed the rapist) and latterly the younger brother in From Dusk Till Dawn. This character even does the same sort of thing: both Zed and Blonde are extremely menacing: Blonde says to the cop "Are you finished now ?" and sort of waves his hand at him; Zed also does that. He sort of reassuringly and in a very menacing way holds up his hand, waves it a bit and says somehting like, very, very calmly, "Shhhhh, yeah hold it". It's really scary. Also one of the most frightening things about the torture scene is the look on the cops face when Blonde starts to dance just before he starts to torture him to "Stuck in the middle with you". It's because he knows that he's dealing with a real sick maniac: the terror on his face is first class, as Masden dances across his field of view (on the one hand we think Masden looks cool/funny, on the other the cop is extremely terrified by this, and we think: "Whoa - he's really worried, maybe this isn't so funny", which it of course turns out not to be. It's one thing being tied up by somebody and beaten up for a reason ("We want to know about the setup" or "Tell us where you've hidden the loot" or "is it safe") but it's another if you're tied up and some guy whips out a razor and starts dancing. It's the difference between being caught by Edmund and Cornwall. The former will kill you if he has to to get what he wants, the latter might do it just for fun and in a very unpleasant way.

There is an obvious comparison between Blondes torturing the cop and Regan and Cornwall mutilating Gloucester, both acts being done for the selfish gratification of one persons desires, at the expense of anothers physical (and mental) pain. It's not just that the torturer does something to another individual for their own pleasure, it's the fact that the other individual has to suffer and experience pain in order that the torturer receive their pleasure. This is most easily demonstrated in the case of Zed, the rapist in PF. Of necessity his 'enjoyment' of the rape, requires that the rapee suffer acute physical pain (not that we're overly sympatheric towards Marcellus Wallace at any stage - he's another vicious criminal very prepared to kill at a moments notice: to whit his pulling a gun on Butch, who had to kill or be killed. Of course Butch didn't have to kill Vincent Vega but that's another story). Also the mafia hitman in TR, who, even though he got sick on his first hit, now did the hits, "just to see the expression on their faces change". Which is really sick, because he didn't start out that way, he let himself become like that. How Cornwall and Regan fit into this is clear: they get the same perverted pleasure and self gratifiction from the torture of Gloucester as discussed above. Regan seems to actually enjoy the physical act itself, while Cornwall seems to require this sort of retribution in order to sate an almost palpable physical urge: he cries "I will have my revenge", in a way that sounds like "I want my lega". Regan is the real monster here, which is not to lessen Cornwalls monstrouusness, because she doesn't seem to really care what Gloucester did, she's along for the 'fun' of the torture. Her "Let him smell his way to Dover", which to her no doubt was funny, is somewhat reminiscent of Blondes "Hey hows it going can you hear that" into the dismembered ear, a sick sort of humour, as with Zeds, "Eeny meeny miney mo", which was horrendous. They think what they're up to is amusing and pleasureable (they're like spoiled kids getting their own way), they have no conception of empathy with the individuals concerned. Of course in this same very scene we see Cornwalls servant stand up and refuse to let Cornwall go any further in his monstrous treatment of Gloucester, in the same SCENE!!, and this leads on to the next point.

Interestingly in both RD and KL it's the torture victims themselves who actually plant the ideas in their torturers minds as to what will be inflicted upon them. In RD, the cop says to Blonde "you can torture me all you want." And Blonde replies "Yeah torture you, that's a good idea". In KL Gloucester early on when he's captured says something like "though I lose mine eyes for it", which plants the idea in Cornwalls mind of plucking out his eyes. Even in the act of the torture there's a similarity - Cornwall struggling says "out vile jelly" during the act and Blonde says "hold still will ya". There's a sort of "amusing" little conversation going on, like the victim is somehow removed from the physical pain they're in, and their physical presence is somehow interfering with some necessary job being done. This is exactly what you might expect though, because only someone who can have no empathy at all could do something like Blonde, Cornwall and Regan do. There is also the comparison between White's refusal to let Joe kill Orange ('This is a mistake I wont let you make Joe') and Cornwalls servant trying to stop him mutilating Gloucester, and all other examples of where a 'servant' engages in an act of pure loyalty to a 'master' (remember Blondes' extremely menacing 'Let me tell you something - I don't have a boss' to the trapped cop), only to pay very dearly for that sense of Loyalty. In the published screenplay of RD, lots of things were originally shot and than removed and 1 or 2 crucial 'bits' were added during the shooting (e.g. looking up Mr. Whites criminal record, meeting with someone from records, picking out his mugshot, and one or two snippets of conversations: one snippet which would favour the arguments I'm making here that was left out was a brief argument White and Eddie have in the car coming back with Pink from picking up the diamonds: Eddie could only get a nurse (the nurses name was Bonnie - as in the nurse who was supposed to be Quentin Tarantinos wife in PF in the scene with Winston Wolf - 'The Bonnie Situation', and of course Tarantinos' mothers name is Connie) and no Doctor. White complains with the words "You and Joe have a responsibility to your men", and "If he dies I'll hold you personally responsibile".

White feels he has a responsibility to Orange and to Pink in getting one to a hospital and telling the other the truth about the situation (if Orange doesn't go to a hospital he dies, if he does he will be caught and may be able to trade information about his fellow thieves) and the way, like Kent seeing Oswald, he completely loses his temper at some individual who's an anathema to him that is: Whites reaction to Pinks "We're not taking him to a hospital" because "If they get him they get closer to you, if they get closer to you they get closer to me and that can't happen".

Another similarity between RD and KL is the presence of a classic Machiavel and the ending as being in a way similar to KL in showing how self destructive the Machiavellian philosophy is (rather we should say how self destructive the type of behaviour Cornwall and Ragan and Goneril engage in is, because Machiavellianism, by it's own definition, is a system of ruling that will work and perpetuate itself). I mean in KL the ending is a vindication, tragic though it is, of the values that those who least deserved to die in the play but did, stood for. In contrast to those values we can see the 'baddies' died/murdered/self destructed because the values they based their actions on WERE ultimately self destructive. The basis of all morality has to be "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Anything other than this and we all have the freedom to do what we want for whatever reason to anybody else - even on a purely selfish level this sort of value has got to pan out profitably (even on the evolutionary level of 'the selfish gene' a la Richard Dawkins). This is also the distinction between Reagan, Goneril, Cornwall and Edmund, who resembles Pink and also White to a certain extent, but White has a touch of the Kents about him.

There are numerous examples of Mr. Pink being one of the sharpest of the bunch: at breakfast he's the one who remembers Mr. Browns thread of conversation; he instantly recognises that the situation was a set up and that someone had to be a rat (mind you he still needed Whites experience and calm to get him through his freaked out phase. He lacks a little maturity with the not wanting to be Pink thing as well); he even forces White to use his head (Pink: You could be the rat. White: Yeah for all I know you could be the rat. Pink: Good now you're using your head.); He's the one who came away with the diamonds and stashed them; he's also the only person to survive the whole affair, but he does get caught; the perfect machiavel; in Dungeons and Dragons terms his character is neutral neutral. So there is a constant friction between those serving selfish interests and those who are capable of selflessness in KL and RD.

An interesting point is how it was that Blonde gained the trust of the mafia bosses: presumably he was so loyal to them because he was given free range to indulge himself in whatever way he felt under their tutelge.

One enigma is why it is that White decided to kill Orange at the very end. He could easily have given up and both would have been taken to hospital and both would probably have lived. The problem though would have been that White would deffinitely have gone to prison for a very long time. Also, even though he may have tried to explain what happened the fact that he was one of the few to have survived the whole affair woould have cast suspicions on him. Prison, and hard time prison for a convicted cop killer would no doubt not be made any easier by the fact that he had killed a mafia boss and his son, and would be suspected of being in cahoots with the cops. Why then his "Looks like we're going to do some time kid" as he lifts Orange up. Earlier we heard him say: "If it's a choice between doing 10 years and tagging some idiot that's no choice". So would he have given himself up if Orange had not told him he was a cop ? What was Orange thinking: he may have thought that White would give himself up if he knew he was a cop, but in fact this is what made him kill Orange (take him 'hostage' in fact). I think once he heard that Orange was a cop he knew he'd been set up and was as good as dead so decided jail was out of the question and decided to blast on the way out.

The captured cop never said anything about Freddy Newendike being an undercover cop, despite all the torture and mental anguish he went through (i.e., getting his ear cut off and having petrol thrown over him and about to be set alight). So, even though he might have had good reason for supposing him dead, he never gave him up. One might argue that he knew that even this information wouldn't save him from being killed (note Nice Guy Eddies' very 'take it for granted tone' that they were going to kill him, "We're not going to let him now he's seen our faces"), but even in last ditch desperation he didn't give him up. So I interpret this as being yet more evidence for the points of view propounded above: the cop was only briefly introduced to Orange, and yet remains loyal to his colleague, even though to grass may very well have prolonged his life. When you think about it, it was an extremely brave thing to be able to do i.e keep quiet and not start shouting "It's him, him", sort of thing, even in a panic, which is what I'd have been doing before they even started asking.