Chindie

I really like the owls as well. I thought the idea was say at first but I do get an odd smile whenever I spot a new one. I tend to wander about at lunch and cone stumbling on new ones. And I even got a laugh out of the ones glasses falling off.

The third series makes the second look like some of the best TV ever made so if you're not enjoying it now I'd cut your losses.

fast paced is probably the last thing I would describe it. easily the most disappointing film I have seen in years Child 44 is probably more interesting if you know the story that inspired it, the horrific crimes committed by Andrei Chikatilo, how he managed to get away with it for so long, how the state reacted and what the whole horrible saga said about Russia at the time and it's war time past. There is a truly powerful story to be told about that entire case, even following the thoughts Child 44 wants to consider, but Child 44 isn't it. Chikatilo was a particularly vicious sadistic serial killer that managed to get away with his long running crimes in part due to the failings of the Soviet regime, and was arguably partly created by the terrible nature of the USSR he was born into. It's not a bad movie, but it makes odd choices of focus. It wants to focus on the idea, that has some merit, that the Russians at the time simply didn't want to think a good communist nation would develop a serial killer, and wants to mash that up against the idea of the control and fear the regime held over any element of dissent. The problem is that the focus is wrong. The Communist regime stuff works best in this kind of film as the foundation of a story that focuses on the crimes. Instead the movie uses the crimes as the foundation to discuss the politics and ends up with a film that doesn't satisfy in either angle. As a thriller about communist dissent it largely stumbles and is rather dull, as a crime thriller it never gets going. Partly, imo, this is because it neuters the crimes, which take even more of the gripping nature of this story away, this film has it's killer casually referred to as torturing his victims, the real life inspiration of the story committed crimes so horrendous as to make you question the humanity of anything capable of such atrocities. It also isn't helped by not really doing a terribly good job dealing with the politics, it doesn't bring anything new and it doesn't develop the right characters enough to make it interesting. It's a shame because I'm convinced there's a great movie in there. The cast is bang on (bar Noomi Rapace, who remains a terrible terrible actress) and the performances are generally good, it looks right and it's technically well made, but the script is wrong and it ends up telling a dull story with a good premise, whilst a great story with an interesting backdrop stares it square in the face.

James Randi is a spectacularly interesting bloke to read up on, incidentally. He's a magician by trade but became particularly well known for really really pissing off charlatans. Particularly Uri Geller. Hence the $1m challenge. People have actually tried it but the best ones are always the ones that go on about doing it then back out by claiming the challenge is rigged when actually it's set up to prove there's no trick in what they're doing.

Erdogan being entirely opposed to Turkey's founding principals has always sat as an odd bedfellow with being its statesman IMO. Given that he also seems to be evil makes his apparent popularity very bizarre. I assume Turkey must be a fairly schizophrenic nation to not bin him wholesale. I'd not be surprised to find that he is playing both sides of the ISIS coin in all honesty.

I rang some old clients the other day and has one answer the phone with '...I wondered where you'd got to!'. It's nice to be appreciated

You can effectively defer days if you need to. In essence you can say 'sorry god, can't do this right now but I'll make it up to you' because the strict sticking to it simply can't work for some people. I'd imagine sports men and women might fit that bracket, although for footballers its timed quite well for the next few years as said earlier in the thread. I used to work with a Muslim girl who basically just picked and chose what she wanted to follow. I believe Ramadan this year in her mind happened to other people in her view.

Makes sense for us. Looks to have the capability, needs to be honed and given a big stage to perform on. And he's just young enough to develop and add to his value. Doubt he'll blow our socks off to begin with but might do in time.

I'd stake good money there's nothing there for him to reject from us.

I also think the Bolasie talk is nonsense. From our perspective, too much money and lessened resale potential because of his age, and from his unless he's supremely underpaid there's no benefit coming here. Nothing in it IMO.

I think that article is pretty on the money. We need a series of 'big weeks' and every single thing we do in them needs to be smart and needs to be more or less instantly successful, or we are in trouble. Let's not forget that this team was shit last season and so far we've mostly gutted it with the shining lights largely joining the queue to leave sharpish, and not much coming the other way...

Who'd have thought Ade Edmondson would be forgotten so quickly...

I'd be astonished if we signed Austin. I doubt he's even a consideration on the table. There's a rebuilding job that needs doing at Villa Park and every penny will have to be stretched and value will be a major factor in every signing. Because of that, there's no way in my mind that we even think about signing a 26yo for £15m who also has potentially suspect long term injury concerns. We'll go for Adebayor as a value experienced proven goalscorer and then splash some cash on a young prospect who in 2/3 years we reckon we can flog for significant profit, and use the rest of the cash to repeat this for as many gaps as we can. Our future is signing prospects for decent money and gambling on players for smaller fees and loans to bolster the immediate problems. Austin does not factor in either, IMO.

Or flexible and imaginative.

Late to the party on this but blimey some of the dialogue in this series is a car crash. 'Its like blue balls.. in your heart'. Sigh...

He's a decent Premier League defender when fit and playing, nothing more, and has throughout his career been far far too injury prone. We'd have been idiotic to offer him a new contract and I can completely understand why no one is banging his door down to get him on board.

So, Ant-Man. Marvel's 12th installment in it's Cinematic Universe, and a new character to most people, comes to the screen after a long and rocky development. Edgar Wright, the man behind Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim versus the World, had wanted to make an Ant-Man movie for years, before even Iron Man was a twinkle in Marvel's movie eye, but the project constantly stalled and span it's wheels, until finally with the Marvel juggernaut seemingly unstoppable Marvel committed to actually making the movie. It made sense for the studio. The character is actually one with a long and storied history in the Marvel comics. There have been 4 Ant-Men over the years, Hank Pym, Scott Lang, Eric O'Grady and Chris McCarthy, but people only tend to care about the first 2 (notably I suspect because Eric O'Grady was a pervert in the comics in essence, and Hank and Scott had the longest and most interesting histories of the lot), and each have been Avengers mainstays, with Hank Pym in particular being a character that is at this point a foundation of the Avengers to the extent it's hard to remove him from it, and has numerous storylines and 'moments' in his back story that are easy to mine for movie plots. So it came to be that we'd have an Ant-Man film, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish drafting numerous scripts and after years in development finally getting started with a movie in 2013. For about 6 months. Edgar Wright had a difference of opinion with the studio, left the project he'd worked on for the best part of a decade, and Peyton Reed was parachuted in to save the whole thing. Paul Rudd had been hired to play Scott Lang and went through the whole script with Adam McKay (who briefly was considered to take on the directors chair himself) making small adjustments to Wright and Cornish's script to tie it more successfully to Marvel's Universe, which the studio guards jealously. Given the problems the film has had, from it getting off the ground at all to a last minute director change and rewrite, and the inherent issue that the character is a bit daft in the eyes of most people (something the film acknowledged in it's first trailer, which seemed almost embarrassed of itself), and tha fact it sits as an odd footnote to Phase 2 after the (literally) earth shattering finale of Age of Ultron, it's hard not to be skeptical of Ant-Man. I certainly was. As much as I love these movies I know they are not flawless, and thats even when you expect them to knock it out of the park (Age of Ultron should have been a homerun from the moment someone thought to do a sequel to Avengers, and whilst it was certainly a good blockbuster it was a bit of a stumble from the standard of the first movie, and we all know Iron Man 2 was a bit ropey). That feeling wasn't helped by word of mouth at preview screenings attached to Jurassic World showings in the US, which noted odd and flat humour and the whole thing feeling more than a little dull. And then the reviews came out last week. Which generally said this was the best of Marvel's efforts this year. Hmm... We open with a shot of the Triskelion, SHIELD's HQ last seen having a helicarrier smash into it in Captain America Winter Soldier. It's 1989 and the building isn't actually finished yet, and we cut to the expected secret boardroom bunker thing with some familiar faces in suits, with Hank Pym (a digitally altered younger looking Michael Douglas) striding in and pissed off. Hank has discovered that SHIELD wants his technology, a serum he has developed that allows the user immense abilities. He resigns SHIELD on the spot and vows they'll never have access to it. We cut to the present day with Rudd's Scott Lang leaving prison. He's served a 3 year sentence for burglary, and we discover that he has been an adept cat burglar, but needs to go straight if he's ever to spend any time as a figure in his daughters life. Of course, that can't last and soon he's back in the game... He and his crew have heard about a rich old guy having a safe in his basement clearly filled with valuables and the old man is away for the week. We see the crew at work, the safe is cracked and they discover it to be empty, bar some odd almost retro suit and helmet... What follows is a heist movie as we watch Scott Lang, mentored by Hank Pym and his daughter, become the Ant-Man to steal a new threat that is inspired by the Ant-Man technology but doesn't consider the risks inherent in using that tech... Everything about Ant-Man coming out of the media has been how this is a small scale movie, one where the stakes are altered from the usual superhero comic book fare. And that is refreshing. Our villain here isn't some intergalactic despot, nor does he plot world domination. He just wants to develop a new piece of technology to sell to the highest bidder and is ruthless in his ways and means to do it. Our hero isn't a billionaire playboy philanthropist with an indestructible suit of armor, nor does he have a magic hammer, turn into a green rage monster nor is he a paragon of righteousness instilled in the height of human capability. He's a thief who doesn't like violence and had a bit of a Robin Hood streak, who gets a suit that makes him tiny but increases his strength, and is mentored by an old man with a haunted look in his eye and a temper. We've come to expect bigger more fantastical spectacle from our blockbusters than the set up Ant-Man provides, and yet it's satisfying still. The film subverts some of these expectations in very knowing ways - we get our CGI specatacular closing action sequence but the scale is appropriately reduced, and the whole thing is mined for gags. It does try to make the stakes more impactful, with some shallow and hamfisted attempts to underline that we are talking world altering ramifications if the heroes fail, but it doesn't really need it. The stakes obviously on offer are enough, even if they, from a pure plot logic point of view would have you say afterwards 'Actually... why were they even trying to stop him?'. It is a comedy. From the get go with a undercurrent of jokes and gags, some fantastic visual gags (special call out to the 'do you want any sugar' scene - a very British visual gag played perfectly with 2 pay offs), and a whole character that steals every scene he's in basically being comic relief, the film wants to amuse you. Amuse is the right word here. It's not expecting to have you rolling in the aisles. It wants to have you smile and giggle and snigger. And it is funny. It missteps though. There are a lot of gags the film almost throws away. Lines that might have raised a smile if they played them differently. Too often there are lines that the film throws in with no attention to paid to them or any room to breath and the obviously funny line is swept over. It's very strange and I do wonder if these lines are holdovers from the Wright and Cornish script - their films have lots of these gags and they know how to play them to just draw enough attention to them to earn the laugh without signposting it. Here the joke isn't signposted at all and the laugh misses the junction entirely. But even saying that, you will laugh and smile. Michael Pena is the corner stone of the film's humour and many reviews are right in saying he's a scene stealer. A slightly dozy associate of Scott Lang, he grins his way through the whole movie and jokes and comedic scenes hang off the character like tinsel on a Christmas tree, including a couple of very Wright esque scenes that work brilliantly. Mentioning Wright again, it's fairly easy to see why he might have felt he needed to leave this project. The film slaps references to Marvels other properties everywhere. Names are dropped, cameos happen (most of them, to the film's credit, unexpected), theres a whole sequence at the end I would stake good money will be revisted by another character in the future. There is the hand of the studio all over it and you can see the joints where Wright's enigmatic style smashes into the Marvel behemoth and gets neutered a little. You are left with the feeling that Wright's movie would have been a more over all interesting and worthy thing, but would sit as an even more awkward oddity in the Marvel stable than it was already going to be, and ultimately the studio was not going to let that happen. This makes the tone odd as well. It's a comedy movie but it has some strange less light moments where it builds mythos or ties in to the existing Marvel legend (almost always involving Hank Pyms past) that almost feel like a different movie, although to be entirely clear a movie I would happily watch. The cast is pretty good across the board. Paul Rudd is a presence in movies I don't usually like but here does good work with a character that is in all honestly a bit bland, Scott Lang isn't defined by anything like his superhero stable mates so ultimately we have a fairly normal guy who can crack a gag. Michael Douglas is probably the standout of the bunch as Hank Pym. He captures elements of the comic character brilliantly - Hank in the comics is a flawed character, he's not blessed with patience and is haunted by horrors of his own design (he is the creator of Ultron, for example, in the paper based universe) - with a performance that seems to have the anger and pathos of the character just hidden from view. The film also knows that members of the audience expect certain things of Pym knowing his character from years of plots, so plays with those expectations, going to the extent of laying hints of seeds of a plot as red herrings that I enjoyed immensely. Evangeline Lilly plays Pym's somewhat estranged daughter Hope, a spicy prickly woman who, to the films credit, is not overtly sexualised, but is also a bit of a thin character that the film could have probably excised entirely. Corey Stroll plays Darren Cross, Pyms former protege who has superceded him and is now developing his own version of the Ant-Man tech, the Yellowjacket (which in the comics was actually one of Pyms alteregos, fact fans). Stroll suffers from the usual issue with Marvel villains, they aren't terribly well developed, but he makes a good fist of it. I actually think the film might have benefitted from more time with Cross, he's given his motivations (and they aren't bad - he's not simply evil) but they could have been developed further, as the film has the tantalising glimpse of an idea that it never fully plays with when you consider Cross, Lang and Hope together - that is that all of them are in some way effected by their relationship with Pym as a father figure that has ultimately made them what they are. Effects are great (to the extent I would say that, if you have a problem with ants, or insects in general, I'd possibly skip this film as it's going to have you uneasy in your seat) although there was a notable scene where even on an imax screen the film struggled to compensate for 3d and some effects against a background, leaving a somewhat blurry mess, but this isn't a deal breaker as it's a very minor scene and I'd bet many people won't even notice it. It's shot well, if a little blandly - the screen doesn't grab you, there aren't any shots that etch themselves on to your brain, theres no great art in the way the film looks. There are a couple of editing sequences that are very Wright-esque, which are easily spotted and almost feel like they came from a different film (I guess they did, really) where you can actually feel the movie change gear briefly. It also absolutely rattles along. It's not a long movie but it feels shorter, it moves with real swiftness and doesn't linger much at any point, meaning you get pulled along with it and barely have time to take some of it in. One of the few movies I've seen recently that could have benefitted from another 10 minutes to smack some development in to some characters, mostly Cross. Ultimately, Ant-Man is an odd little movie. It's a superhero movie that bucks the 'stakes' trend - there is no city being smashed in the earth here - but it wants the stakes to be worthwhile. It's a comedy that only wants the gags as a bass note to the whole shebang. It wants to be a footnote the Phase 2 but it follows a movie that for all intents and purposes represented an obvious, final and clanging booming full stop to Phase 2, but it also wants to be seperate to it as well as tie itself into the cinematic universe whilst being this odd little wholly new thing. It's a curio, a weird idea smashed into a strange comic book character jammed into this movie colossus universe and trying to paper itself over cracks as to exactly where it fits. You can see where it's been stitched together, you can feel the odd make up in it's development. But that doesn't hurt it. I liked the story, I liked the characters, I liked the ideas, it made me smile, and subverted my expectations of it and it's characters. It played with my thoughts as I was trying to run ahead of the plot with Pym's arc in the story. It's probably in Marvel's top tier of work, for me, and worth your time. I suspect it will be a fairly divisive movie, though, some people are not going to get on with it at all, especially if the humour doesn't work for you, as it is oddly bland in many facets. As usual we have a couple of stingers at the end of the film and unusually this time both are quite weighty ones. The first is very much an Ant-Man sequel nod and is a nice touch for fans who know that no Ant-Man vehicle is quite complete without a full appearance of a certain something. The second is more universe building and a set up for a coming film. Not an earth shatterer, it might have actually worked better having been left to the movie it belongs to really, but probably suggests that that film is going to have so much going on they need the ground work in place now as much as possible. If you're invested in the Marvel series, both are worth your time and the credits aren't that long, thankfully.

Adebayor would be the most disappointing signing I could realistically contemplate at this moment in time, which is saying something. I wholly believe it's a signing we'll make though.

Colour me dumbfounded. Good signing. Very good signing. More please.

Michu has severe injury problems. IIRC his ankle is more or less knackered. He won't be able to handle Premier League football week in week out, hence Swansea letting him go.

Nightcrawler is a cracking movie. Antman for me tomorrow at the IMAX. Wasn't that confident in it but the good word of mouth hand me excited for something a bit different for Marvel

I don't think quite desperate. We've enough cash, we're still Premier League and it's not like we're a promoted side. My one caveat would be that we need to make sure we don't go too risky on the signings. We need to know that some of our signings can do the business relatively quickly. If we take a punt on too many moneyballers then we could be dead and buried before they've learned to crawl. Give it a couple of weeks. Everyone knows we have the Benteke money, etc. We'll get held over a barrel. We already need to stretch that money because that squad was weak before the revolving door was installed a month back. I think, maybe an odd quality name, but the rest is going to be punts and 'value'. And by value I mean Adebayor and the like.

Or more likely, 'Desperate'. We need an overhaul. And we've got just over a month to manage it and the money we have everyone and his dog knows about with no sugar daddy dollar behind it. The transfer window is in the process of chewing us down and getting ready to vomit up the broken corpse of Aston Villa just in time for the season. And to make it even better the guy in the dugout isn't exactly a homerun either.

He's now the lowest of the low. He'll need to look up to see a lizards belly. If he's going to go, fine... But don't say you're not going anywhere then change your mind again. word removed.

I'm genuinely amazed that anyone is making any noise at all about staggered payments. Firstly it's Twitter of course so nonsense, but secondly as everyone's been pointing out this is standard practice. From an accounts point of view the money is essence ours (whether we get out now or in bits over the next 2 years or whatever) so we can spend it because we will get the money. It'll have no effect on is buying anyone else.