http://www.mirror.co.uk/usvsth3m/quarter-mile-at-a-time-5440136
Category: Journalism
http://www.mirror.co.uk/usvsth3m/17-strange-things-happened-kids-5369401
http://www.mirror.co.uk/usvsth3m/neighbours-weirdest-storylines-30th-anniversary-5311127
I was going to go for a walk and then my mum asked me to take the dog and I didn’t want to because I was worried I would lose the dog or make it die in some way so instead I have decided to review all the films I saw in the cinema except any that I have forgotten.
Saving Mr Banks – this was about Mary Poppins’ dad or something and I think I cried because I was having a DIFFICULT WEEK.
American Hustle – everyone was dumb and/or cross and I didn’t like it.
Gravity – it was funny when George Clooney was Space Jesus.
The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty – I guess Ben Stiller wanted a holiday and made this pile of shit so other people would pay for it.
12 Years A Slave – it was bad what happened to that guy and it was weird watching in a big room full of other people. Also Benedict Cumberbatch was in it for some reason.
The Railway Man – it was also quite bad what happened to that guy.
Anchorman 2 – this had one funny joke in it but I can’t remember what it was and the rest was appalling and if you liked this you are a bad person.
The Wolf Of Wall Street – this had good bits like when he’s done all drugs and can’t get into his car, but is 7 hours long for some reason and then at the end of the day it’s a real dude who basically got away with it and is still awful?
Inside Llewyn Davis – this gave me a lot of feelings but then I rewatched it and maybe didn’t have as many feelings but I like the song about the astronaut.
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit – I don’t remember watching this or why I watched it but it had Captain Kirk in it.
Robocop – they should have made the RoboCop remake be a meta-film about a cashgrab RoboCop remake or something. Maybe a stuntman has an accident and they make him into a RoboCop? I don’t know but it would be better than this although it was sort of weird and funny when they took off RoboCop’s body and he was all just lungs in a jar.
The Lego Movie – 1) It had Lego in it. 2) The best Batman film since the 1960s. 3) Grumpy Harrison Ford obviously refused to play Lego Han Solo, what a twat. 4) Just 100%, really.
Her – like Black Mirror would be if Black Mirror was good although I seem to remember some bits were painfully awkward and made me want to shout “DON’T DO THAT” at the man.
A New York Winter’s Tale – Colin Farrell gets a magic horse and tries to use it to steal some silver but instead steals the love of a beautiful daughter but the beautiful daughter has consumption and he tries to kiss it better with magic but it doesn’t work so instead he walks around New York for 100 years until he can kiss an 8 year old’s cancer better? Also Will Smith is in it as the devil. 10/10
Grand Budapest Hotel – I don’t know. Lots of things happened and it looked pretty.
The Zero Theorem – thin residues of leftover Gilliam with the occasional good bit, then it turns out to have been all about those damned money men at the studios messing with my creativity, maaaan! Oh dear.
Captain America – The Winter Soldier – The best bit of this film was when Jenny Agutter started doing kung fu stuff and the worst bit was when it turned out it was Scarlett Johansson in a Jenny Agutter mask. Oh and it was funny when Captain America had that list of modern day things he had to check out like Star Wars and Nirvana and sort of neat that they apparently did a different one of those for every country changing the references. But mostly just some stuff happened.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 – more like The Amazing Spider-Man Poo!!!
Frank – this was good but it was weird that he looked like Frank Sidebottom but wasn’t like Frank Sidebottom? IDK why they didn’t make the head square or something. Good song.
X-Men: Days Of Future Past – it had the old X-Men and also the new X-Men in it can you even imagine?
Two Faces Of January – two men want to do a kiss on Kirsten Dunst! Which one is going to do the kissing? Oh no she fell down the stairs!
Edge Of Tomorrow – this was actually GOOD FUN despite marketing that made it look like a boring shootman video game. Sort of like Groundhog Day but instead of fighting his personality Tom Cruise fights aliens *and* his personality. Also he starts off as an arsehole getting his JUST DESSERTS and that is an enjoyable thing to watch happen to Tom Cruise. The ending is sort of stupid but what did you expect?
Guardians Of The Galaxy – everyone liked this so my controversial opinion is that it wasn’t very good woah. It was too dumb to care about things that weren’t jokes and there weren’t enough jokes in it. But have you heard the soundtrack with the ironic dad music LOL?
22 Jump Street – this wasn’t brilliant but was way better than it had any right to be although not as better than it had any right to be than the first one. But apparently the next one is also going to be Men In Black 4?
Gone Girl – was this meant to be a funny movie because I thought it got pretty funny? Anyway the Gone Girl owned Ben Affleck well done Gone Girl!
Nightcrawler – I think this was meant to be funny and I thought it was funny. Jake Gyllenhall is a weirdo who has learned everything from Wikipedia and internet forums for MBAs and decides to become an ambulance chaser in order to make a lot of money and then he does this because capitalism.
Interstellar – I guess they must have sent this film into a black hole because it seemed like it was 70 hours long!!! Anyway it turns out love is better than gravity, but not as good as gravy and then Matthew McConaughey pulls a face.
Mr Turner – Mr Turner was a DIFFICULT MAN who did paintings and then HE DIED. Bye bye Mr Turner.
The Hobbit The Battle Of Five Armies – a dragon crushes Stephen Fry to death and then there’s 3 hours of other stuff and then Billy Connelly is in it for some reason and then The Hobbit goes home.
The Imitation Game – it was also quite bad what happened to this guy who this time *was* Benedict Cumberbatch.
Oh also I saw The Muppet Christmas Carol at a “sing-along” screening and had emotions. The end.
Categories
30 Things To Do Before You’re 30
Because Jesus Christ I’m not bungee jumping any time in the next 12 hours.
1. Shake Jeremy Beadle by the ‘wrong’ hand.
2. Live in Streatham, twice.
3. Get kicked out of Jongleurs, Portsmouth for having a piss in the corner.
4. Appear in BBC Olive Magazine as Daniel Wilkins, Engineer.
5. Livetweet a solo marathon of all the Police Academy Films.
6. Wake up walking across Tower Bridge at 5am and immediately call your mum to assure her that you don’t need to borrow money.
7. Drink 6 pints of lager then attempt to interview Stewart Lee before what neither of you knew was going to turn out to be a Fathers4Justice benefit gig.
8. Burn a jacket potato in the microwave.
9. Quote Star Trek: The Wrath Of Khan in an email to a girl you’re in (unrequited) love with.
10. Wake up with your postcode written on your hand.
11. Play a hexadecimal in a musical rip-off of Tron.
12. Walk out of a screening of The King’s Speech because you’re so drunk you’re about to start ‘getting republican’.
13. Within 24 hours overhear different people describing you as looking a bit like Paul Merton and a bit like Leonardo DiCaprio.
14. Cry on the phone to HMRC.
15. Go to an 80s party as Winston Smith. No-one gets it.
16. Watch every episode of Stargate SG-1.
17. And Stargate: Atlantis.
18. Unwittingly talk about Saint Etienne in front of a man from Saint Etienne in a way that’s personally mortifying but doesn’t provide a satisfying anecdote.
19. Use the Science Museum’s PA system to pretend to be an alien overlord.
20. Send Alex Hern a DVD of The Beaver.
21. Pass out into the Wandsworth Road and smash one of your teeth out.
22. Fail an audition to be on Pointless.
23. Drunkenly slur Andrew Collins’ own name at him after a radio recording.
24. Be in a naked calendar. With your colleagues.
25. Have a hungover snooze on the company sofa and wake up to the chairman of the board looking at you suspiciously.
26. Leave a party because you think it’s funny that your friends’ creepy next door neighbour wants to ‘draw’ you then bolt once he starts asking you if you like his collection of porcelain elves.
27. Look forward to lottery night because you can earn 30p a go for texting drunk people the numbers.
28. Fail to have finished reading any work of classic literature, though you got to the bit in Ulysses where the man has a shit AND listen to the Classic Serial so you’re totally well-read.
29. Come to terms with people calling you ‘Harry Potter’ because at this point it’s flattering.
30. Fall down an escalator, followed by the speaker system you were supposed to be looking after.
The big political question that no-one is willing to talk about is where members of parliament do their shopping. I mean, obviously when they’re in parliament they probably go to that little Tesco Express by Westminster tube station to buy, e.g. a lasagne and a miniature bottle of wine, but what about when they’re at home?
For obvious reasons most MPs don’t publicise the locations of their houses, but the majority of them do have a publicly available address for their constituency office. Almost all of these these are available on the parliament website; about 50 don’t publish one at all so I’ve used either the address of place they most often do their “surgery” events for constituents, or that of their party’s local office, to stand in.
Gathering this data itself was an interesting demonstration of: 1) how difficult some MPs make it for their constituents to get in touch to talk about their concerns (sometimes there’s more information about how to get a tour of the Houses of Parliament), and 2) how bloody awful (and often quite broken) most MPs’ websites are. Anyway, with that in hand we can figure out what their local supermarket situation is.
The constituency offices of Conservative Party MPs tend to be the furthest away from supermarkets; on average they have to go almost twice as far as Labour MPs to do their shopping. This is probably illustrative of the fact that Labour tend to do better in urban areas & the Conservatives in rural ones, or maybe it’s because of Global Warming???
We can also see what the closest supermarket chain tends to be for each party’s offices.
Interestingly, despite The Co-operative group’s links with the Labour Party (32 of Labour’s MPs are also joint members of the Co-operative political party), Labour constituency offices tend to be closer to Tesco branches, while Co-op branches tend to be the closest supermarkets to Tory & Lib Dem offices.
Lib Dem offices favour Marks & Spencers more than those of other parties, Iceland is a lot more popular with Labour, and no-one much shops at Budgens.
Obviously there are some variables we can’t account for: Chris Kelly, MP for Dudley South, has an office that’s close to a Tesco Express, but maybe he really like Marks and Spencers’ Percy Pigs pig-shaped confectionery items, so makes the 10 km round trip every day to get himself a bag from the Merry Hill store. His terrible website doesn’t mention whether he likes Percy Pigs. Perhaps the government should have a website detailing which MPs like which sweets, to allow the public to get more of an idea about where their representatives do their shopping.
Below you can see the average distance of an MP’s office from each brand’s stores in kilometres, grouped by party. (Based on the closest 40 stores to each office.)
Nick Clegg’s closest store is a Tesco Express at an Esso petrol station, but I reckon he does his mum’s shopping at Londis.
Eric Pickles is closest to an M&S, so that’s probably where he gets his pickles, except on special occasions when he goes to the only slightly further away Iceland to get a mint Viennetta.
I assume I’ll probably have to go on the run now I’ve released all this sensitive government data, but this is bigger than me. People had to know.
(Supermarket data was provided by Chris Zetter, creator of the excellent SuperLocate iOS app. Other supermarkets are available. Here’s a Google Doc of the constituency office data. No accuracy is guaranteed.)