F.I.F.A. World Cup 2014. Holland V Argentina. Match Report.

First published by Ace Magazine online July 2014.

“On the cusp of glory, frustration and exasperation will find a way to block success…”*

Emotions in Brazil must be heading all over the place as it stands, for the footballing public, the religion of the sport is enough to make anybody even remotely concerned about the final on Sunday wonder just who they are going to cheer on. The industrious Germans who tore their side apart with the consummate ease of a Lion being offered an all you can eat menu whilst picking their main course for dinner on the Serengeti or Argentina, their biggest rivals in World Football, a country that is less than a couple of hours away by airplane, a country that produced more attractive football than Brazil in the last decade…Nobody could surely blame a single person in Brazil if they thought on Sunday afternoon, “I cannot face this, I am going to bed till Monday, roll on 2018.”

F.I.F.A. World Cup 2014. Holland V Argentina. Match Report. full post

(1276 words, estimated 5:06 mins reading time)

Betty Blue Eyes, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Laura Baldwin, Tobias Beer, Kit Benjamin, Adam C. Booth, Amy Booth-Steel, Jeni Bowden, Ricky Butt, Matt Harrop, Oliver Izod, Rachel Knowles, Lauren Logan, Rebecca Louis, Sally Mates, Joe Maxwell, Hayden Oakley, Anthony Ray, Kate Robson-Stuart.

Winston Churchill, the war-time leader of Great Britain, once exclaimed that to look a dog in the eyes was to see it acknowledge it saw its master, a cat would see its slave but to look a pig in the eyes, well the pig sees its equal…for Betty Blue Eyes, it’s doubtful you will ever see anything to equal this well written and superbly performed play again.

Betty Blue Eyes, Theatre Review. Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(557 words, estimated 2:14 mins reading time)

Shane Beales, Time. E.P. Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Time is perhaps the greatest commodity that Humanity possesses; no other creature on the Earth feels its passing in the same way, by the ticking of the arbitrary clock, the machine that allots how you live between the tick and the tock and how you use up your designated heartbeats. Every other creature goes by nature, Humanity goes by the well-oiled spring and the belief that Time is to be conquered, you either use it productively or find that at some point life has gotten so far away from you that it has swallowed whole by the numbers imprinted on the clock.

Shane Beales, Time. E.P. Review. full post

(385 words, estimated 1:32 mins reading time)

Candleford, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Kim Veldman, Lisa Hitchins, Albert Hastings, Stacey Liddell, Carla Cookylnn, Rachel McKeown, Charlotte Holguin, Gillian Lewis, Gemma Doyle, Peter Higham, Sheddie Broddie, John Goodwin, Bertie Jones, Agustin Arraez, Lisa Symonds, Keri Seymour, Amy Stout, Michael Treanor, Ady Potter, Katie Thomas, Janet Fennell, Derek Weigh.

To perform a theatre production based on a hit television programme, a period piece in which the attention to detail of the age is usually the first thing that subconsciously many people sitting down to watch will question, is a brave choice. For a company that is made up of those who love acting for its ventured expression, for the satisfaction of being on stage and becoming someone else it is courage befitting the bold and the fearless.

Candleford, Theatre Review. Unity Theatre, Liverpool. full post

(585 words, estimated 2:20 mins reading time)

Footnote…

Tears were never wasted on you but the anger

diminished as it should when somebody dies in your mind.

I see the face in other books and feel the sick-

ness return at the thought of you.

 

A Sonnet for the love of you, the memory of the cult

captured and freed with remorse, the handshake

unfulfilled and unanswered, my fault.

It matters not as I still care and hope that you are happy now with nothing at stake.

 

On your own request you relegated yourself from a paragraph to a sentence,

Footnote… full post

(141 words, estimated 34 secs reading time)

The Most, The Vinyl E.P. Collections. E.P. Reviews.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There was a time when the lands that encompass the Nordic sphere of influence weren’t, with one notable exception, particularly noted for their music output or inspiration on the twin cultures of America and the U.K. Every genre was met with the kind of derision that you expect from arguably self-centred dominant crop of major artists.  Times change, spheres of influence move on, what was considered unattractive or just plain wrong can become the stuff of legends and as with Iceland, Norway, The Faroe Islands, Finland and Denmark, Sweden’s music has become something to savour, like the stunning landscapes that dwarf the fields, the lakes that capture the imagination, The Most are something to admire from a country that holds such things in the palm of its hands and nourishes them in a way that the U.K. at times seems to have forgotten.

The Most, The Vinyl E.P. Collections. E.P. Reviews. full post

(475 words, estimated 1:54 mins reading time)

Gramercy Arms, The Seasons Of Love. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

If you wanted happening, creative, inventive and artistic way of life in America during the late 70s through to around 1993, then like the period before the Second World War and the smell of Jazz oozing out of the bars on 77th Street like a victory parade caught in the heat of noon day sun, the best place to go was New York City.

Gramercy Arms, The Seasons Of Love. Album Review. full post

(521 words, estimated 2:05 mins reading time)

Manic Street Preachers, Futurology. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

If the early part of The Manic Street Preacher’s career was an abundance of the brutal thought wrapped up in the assurance of a protection from four lads from South Wales then as the group have got older, as the more the world feels more insane and the feeling of being abandoned becomes more prevalent day by day, the more The Manic Street Preachers are needed to offer a light on the insidious, on the corrupt and corruptible and the need to understand that to feel angry is not just a feeling it is a right.

Manic Street Preachers, Futurology. Album Review. full post

(475 words, estimated 1:54 mins reading time)

Chicago, Chicago XXXVI. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Creatively Chicago were one of the finest bands to have ever come out of America, they rank up there with absolute greats and their blockbuster of an album which they wrecorded live Chicagio at Carnegie Hall still rates as one of the finest pieces of music ever captured in the rawness of the stage show. Yet time moves on, the slight off putting stale, fragrant-less aroma comes out every now and then as you listen intently to the ensembles latest release Chicago XXXVI.

Chicago, Chicago XXXVI. Album Review. full post

(492 words, estimated 1:58 mins reading time)

How To Train Your Dragon 2, Film Review. Odeon Cinema, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Jay Baruchel, Cate Blanchett, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, T.J. Miller, Kristin Wiig, Djimon Hounsou, Kit Harrington, Kieron Elliott, Philip McGrade, Andrew Ableson, Gideon Emery, Simon Kassianides, Randy Thom.

There are many films that at the end of the screening you wonder exactly why they are advertised as being for children, why the family, which all when and good as you want the next generation of film lovers to have had great experiences like this rather being baby sat by a games console, has to be involved; for some films are truly made for everybody to enjoy and yet advertisers insist on placing some films in to ready-made box.

How To Train Your Dragon 2, Film Review. Odeon Cinema, Liverpool. full post

(468 words, estimated 1:52 mins reading time)