Why I'll never get anywhere...

From here on in and out and up also, I've nonsensically realised...my career is ruined. I've reached a cul de sac from which there is no escape. Even the little path down the side where the cats live is grown over with weeds with bits of bottle in them.

Metaphors aside, this is a serious problem. I've reached an actual, factual dilemma within my line of work. The thing is...

People don't take comedy seriously.

Not any more at any rate. There's too much of it! You couldn't go around congratulating the creators of every last little tease on facebook, every chuckly text spam starter. Unrewarding. So no, comedy is what nobody wants any more. Case in point: PhoneShop, e4's latest comedy, promoted to the max just to fall short at the finish line, because it was poo.

And if that's what they're pushing out in the comedy line at e4, the most fantastically modern of the twelve and a half (they can't count for a whole if they're only active for three hours) channels available to me through freeview, then the genre has surely been cut off at the source, left floating in a crevasse full of piss-flavoured reviews and slipping quickly to the murky depths.

Which brings me to my dilemma: With comedy moribund what in Christ's name am I going to do? The mildly amusing and the amusingly mild are my expert areas. I try writing serious from time to time, and as a comedian I'm something of a barely hatched duck, but take a genre out of the picture and you're blowing me out of the water, with nothing but a few scraps of singed debris to cling to.

The solution of course would be for TV to buck up it's ideas and start pushing out some serious commo-gold, but sadly this is 2010, and all the jokes are gone. There is literally, from this point on, in my opinion, nothing worth laughing at that doesn't hark back to the yesteryear. This is the jokepocalypse, laughageddon, et cetera (I was going to put a variation of judgement day here, but it's three am, I've just watched 5 episodes of Nathan Barley back to back and my brain's as fried as insert fried thing here)

Pack your bags, kids, and smash the TV. They're here. They're coming. And if you're craving those last few laughs before that awful cold silence, head over to my house, we'll have a 1900 film fest like you would believe (2000-2010 included of course).

Screw the ratings TV dudes, you've had my envisage, hang up your pens and call Morris or Gervais or something. And hurry, my carpet wasn't laid to suit these sort of chuckles...

Escape from the Tower

On Monday 25th of October, Robbie Cleary, along with his mum and his sister and his mate, set off upon a gruesome journey, the trials that awaited him both arduous and nerve-wracking in their nature. His sole aim: To test a recently developed iPod application.

The day began...damply. Not promising. But five hours and four train rides later it had brightened up, and I was standing on the threshold of the Tower of London. If you can call it a threshold. It's more of a giant bridge with an intimidating gate, adorned with glass-covered fourteenth century graffiti. Around me slouched my crack team of testing personnel, a mixture of new-age boffins (me, Jahan and Stan), sprinkled with innocent sugars and spices (my sister and Stan's), baked with a vintage, old-style gas oven (My mum, John and Constance). I don't know why I've set us out as a recipe. I'm hungry, okay?

After a quick brief, we bombed up to the boardroom and got our pods and phones set up. Because my device was of the pod variety I had to take a nonGPS route through the application, which meant I had a little less down time because (having ignored the brief) I spent most of my boardroom time pretending to be Lord Sugar and trying to work out how to operate the system.

In the end I found it was rather simple, and I was ready to go seconds behind the others. We bundled down to the entrance, while the vintage team struggled through some hiccups in the GPS location.

That aside, we were presented with four prisoners to free, and for the sake of politeness, we all decided to choose the same one (the polar bear), and were thusly thrust - at different paces - upon the same mission across the tower. I took the lead, investing a certain gamer's enthusiasm in the format, and we rendezvoused at the end of that mission by the tower gate, at which point we fumbled through a little pop-up quiz, then received our reward for our errand-running. For some reason though, a ghost in the machine extracted a large quantity of my friends' money, and I was left the pompous landlord, milking his Apple iCashCow.

I've forgotten to mention that I was filming the entire thing, and juggling a map, an iPod and a camcorder was getting to be tricky, and continued to be tricky throughout. But it was fun enough to justify some strains and bumps, the characters loveable and ridiculous enough to keep you going, even though when you looked back you realised the majority of what you'd been doing was walking and tapping. Because while you knew that, you also knew that you'd enjoyed it, and that along the way you got to see some neato historical structuros, perhaps scrounged some advice from the odd guard or even a beefeater, learnt a thing or two and kept the kids from puncturing your skull with their horrible little voices for a couple of hours (except if you're me, in which case you only have to open your mouth to be wrenched back to the joyous world of childhood). After ambling through 3 of the 4 missions we packed up for lunch, then munched our way back to the boardroom. We wrote up reviews and did several pieces to camera.

Overall, a definite "experience". I can't say word-for-word what I said to that camera but I think you'll find an approximation of it above, along with an enormous recount of the day. From that I hope you can make your own opinion about how well the app works. I, for one would like to say that it definitely succeeds in its objective, that being to distract the public from the terrible prison of overpriced tedium that is the Tower of London. No but really, it's a great place, you should go.

Robbie out.

You like that? That's my sign off.

Paranormal Activity 2

I'm not sure, and I'm hardly motivated enough to check, but I may have reviewed the first film on this very blog, if so, then you're probably better off reading that review, as I find my talents, unlike my good looks, but very like my general lifestyle, tend to deteriorate with time, much in the way that a hot lump of damp biscuit withers in the winter sun.

In case I didn't review the first film, here's my impression of the film, hot off the collective printing press formed by the connection of my brain and the internet. Although I suppose the actual connection would be my hands? Or the web? Or maybe my laptop? You see what I mean about deteriorating?

I'll start with what happened when I walked in the cinema, generally that can get laughs. And I need laughs. This is meant to be a comedy blog. So I walk in, buy my tickets, and then we go in and sit down.

No wait, I missed the funny part. I bought the tickets illegally! (audience laughter) I'm actually only fourteen years old, whereas the certificate for this film is Fifteen! (further laughs) Stupid bastards! (awkward silence, several audience members leave) Stupid...bloody...(gunshot)

Anyway, I went to the showing at cinema de lux, having decided to treat myself, and since no one else was available, I took Jahan, one of my less conventional friends. Unfortunately this caused multiple problems because:

A. He looks about twelve (apart from the moustache and arm hair)

and B. It's his first time with horror.

The first problem meant I had to use my parents in order to purchase our tickets (crime just isn't cool when your mum and dad help out), and the second meant I had to put up with him squeezing every available part of my body at regular intervals throughout the film.

The film itself I found to be lacking in originality. The jolts where still there, along with new faces to be dragged around the room by scary demons, but it seems a lot like more of the same from my perspective.

I'm not saying I wasn't scared. Tomorrow's stance will testify that I won't sleep tonight. The only problem was that I'd seen the first one, and was able to figure out - through the similarities between the scary moments in either film - the formula. It is as follows.

Normal stuff. Normal stuff. Little gag. Normal stuff. Normal stuff. Slightly worrying occurence. Buzzing noise. Something scary. Repeat until end.

In contrast to it's predecessor (which is also its sequel, though ends up fitting somewhere in the middle) PA2 has more characters, and is therefore more able to create contrasting characters and narrative arcs. There's the woman, who comes off as maternal and caring and anxious throughout, and there's the man, who's big and brave and won't take any of this ghostly shit seriously, then there's the girl, who comes off just about in the middle, and is therefore picked up as the protagonist, and there's a dog and a baby.

I don't know what it is about these kind of bonds, it's something I tried to pull off in my short story I posted a few weeks back, that surreal connection between two opposing things, the great beast and the innocent child. Anyway its tangible in some of the scarier scenes. The dog's never far from the baby's side, standing guard while he sleeps on. It's a beautiful bit of silent acting between two barely sentient beings, but its pulled off immaculately, and of course the baby doesn't just contribute with his existence. There's also the crying. I don't know what the hell they did to that baby to make it cry so hard, maybe they just punched it, but the fear come off in a very real sense, and in a sort of raw sense as well, from something with no language and no knowledge. The baby controls the film in a way. Sort of. Do I know what I'm talking about?

In summary, (because my thighs and fingertips are starting to ache, and there's only so long you can not revise before the guilt starts messing with your bodily functions) the film gives a believable background to its ancestor, with some of the scares we came to love from the first film, and some extra stuff chucked in too. First time PA goers are in for a shock. Second time fans, it's still worth going. But expect a touch of the de ja vu with your spontaneous incontinence.

Robbie out.

Another Apology

I'm sorry guys! (again)

I've failed you! (again)

I did announce on my facebook - that wondrous bundle of knowledge - that I would be reviewing The Event, but I found my heart wasn't in it (Blair Underwood is though) and I ended up engulfing spoonfuls of sugar upon the edge of my bed, being lulled to sleep by never-ending reruns. I had become what I had ridiculed in my second ever post, donning my Homer Simpson shorts and Matrix shirt (both ridiculously underworn and overused) and surrendering myself to the television in a desperate act of attempted self-consolation.

Thankfully though I was saved. In a blind fit of nostalgia I rang a long-lost friend (who lives about two hundred metres away) and she convinced me to come over and blub in person.

On doing so (having changed out of my unsuitable attire) I felt considerably more human, and was able to drink coffee and stave the night away listening to her endless problems, and feeling slightly more humorous about mine. Until her parents politely asked me to leave at nine. Then again, slightly less politely at ten. Then again at ten something, at which point I realised it was in the interest of my safety that I left.

So I'm back, sort of.

Not that I ever left.

Er...

Look, I'm here, okay?

Phone shop (again? really?)

Shock humour.

Is that it?

Jesus.

I can do that. I do do that. Who hasn't shouted fuck and giggled in the classroom? No one.

I've run out of things to say.

This never happens.

Why can't this show deliver?

Why have I nothing to say about it?

Nothing should be said.

Bury this.

Burn it.

Kill it. Eat it's children.

Bury it.

Late night panic

You may have realised over the last few weeks that I have "sold out" in many ways. Posting short stories, plays, documentaries, basically anything that I bother to knock out when I'm bored, no pun intended. Whereas what I should be doing is entertaining and enthralling with my comedy style reviews! Doi!

But I'm scared.

For possibly the first time in my life, ever, one of my nonsensical reviews is going to decide my future, in just a dozen or so hours, when I stride elegantly into my english classroom (to the sound of gasps all around as my classmates take in my dashing masculine beauty, cursing themselves for having gone whole days without it over the weekend) I will be forced to sit down, possibly quite damply, and scribble out 600 or so words in an actual factual test.

If you like this style of post, head over to http://www.disney.co.uk/DisneyMovies/high-school-musical-3movie/ while I nervously attempt to work up the courage to defenestrate while I'm still young. (Look up "defenestrate" and use it on your friends! They'll be amazed!)

Why everything feels wrong...

Oh e4,

Beautiful, pitiful e4,

I see you there, amid the remnants of your shattered dreams,

you were hip, funny, flashy,

you had that voice-over guy,

oh e4,

where are you now?

Beneath the tattered robes of some late-night high-budget flop-out sitcom,

rolling lavishly in recycled drama, caught up in the ratings storm?

I see you e4,

and I'm not happy.

Yes I'm afraid it's time to denounce our beloved channel for all but the occasional repeat of our favourite sitcom, and perhaps a bit of inbetweeners but NO MORE! For e4 has failed us, yes you e4, i see you watching, come over here it's okay, come on. Yes you have failed us. What were yuo thinking? A phone shop? Ooh look at me, I'm a little man pretending to be David Brent surrounded by scary gangster people WRONG! Yes I have hit you. Well I'm just making a point. Shut up, I'm not finished. And Ugly Betty? Drop that stuff! Drop it like it's hot, and covered in gaudy TV vomit. Drop it into a vat of something unthinkable and then walk away. e4, you know I love you, but you're bringing me down. What's that? It's okay? Why? A new series? Of what? Desperate what? Oh. Oh god. Oh spare me. Oh jesus I promised myself... I'm sorry e4. Don't look at me like that! I'm sorry! I'm switching to sky1.

If you're anything like me, which I doubt, this'll be the drama playing out inside your head too. But if you're female e4 will be a big brute man with chest hair and a chiselled physique, whereas in my brain e4 is a foxy mistress, with flowing blond hair and a gigantic wardrobe and... and... oh e4 why? WHY!?

Short Story (SF): Rust

Rust

The light flashes brightly across the mud for a second, forcing my eyes shut. It’s gone soon enough, and the dark’s always a relief. There is nothing like solid, complete darkness. It cleanses. Water begins to bite into my feet and I shift, the cold rippling through my body in nauseating waves. The warm light returns and I close my eyes, willing the sleep to come. Time passes, arrogantly. I stand up and wobble over to where I know the wall to be, then push one hand against the tarpaulin, drops of moisture easing through. I trace my fingers up, towards a tiny gap up above my head, and yank down hard. A drop of ice hits my forehead and I almost lose my grip, but seconds later the tiny reservoir of rainwater begins to slowly drip down the side. I cup my hands, feverishly clutching at the tiny droplets as they rush past me, thudding minutely into the dirt below.

“Jeremy?” Balta comes in. I’d sleep with her, but it would only hurt her even more to hear me crying out at night. This way we’re both happy. Except me. I’m scared.

“What is it?” I suck the cold off my lips, and raise my cupped hands .

“Water, Jeremy?” She takes a step towards me and puts her hands on my belt, pulling my face down to hers. I push my fingers up under her chin and she soaks her face, sucking up tiny drips, and it kills me when I have to pull my hands away. She looks up at me, scared and confused.

“Still thirsty, Jeremy.”

I shake my head. You have to, I tell myself, you have to live. Balta looks as though she’s about to wail, then she remembers where she is. Her head droops and water dribbles down her neck onto the ground. I crawl over into the corner to drink, dribbling it forcefully down my throat, soaking, easing away the hunger.

“Sheens.”

I look up. Balta’s gone. My heart jumps and I run through to the next room. Balta’s there, and there’s a light bleeding through the wall. A steady concentric circle of light, just glaring through at us. Acting on instinct I grab Balta and pull her through into my room. Scrambling in the dirt I feel for the tiny latch under my sheets. My fingers find it and I fumble. Balta starts crying. I grab the handle and pull up. The floor comes away and I push Balta down. She screams then groans as she hits the floor. The light’s still there, guiding me down to meet her. I clutch her hand in mine and she’s shaking. We hold our breath and I pull the hatch shut. There’s silence and I turn to where Balta’s breath falls against my wrist. She’s still crying, but silently. The air around us feels dry. My feet scrabble around the floor, the walls are a few centimetres from my outstretched arms, and I find what I’m looking for in a tiny hole at the edge, behind Balta’s head. I grab it and turn to Balta. Her tears have stopped for now.

“Balta.” My voice hurts my throat, and feels far too loud. Balta nuzzles closer to me.

“I’m scared, Jez.”

I almost feel sad for a second, but I know what I have to do.

“Balta?”

“Yes?”

“You have to take this, yeah?” I push the gun into her hands and she wraps her fingers around the grip. Her breathing stops and for a split second I panic, logic fleeing and fear taking its place. She coughs and the world returns. The darkness, the sickness, and the hole. Balta’s looking up at me, her eyes dimly reflecting the intermittent light creeping down from the cracks above us.

“You have to pull down here now,” I tell her, shakily, “but bullets won’t stop them Bal, only slow them down.”

Balta’s looking down now, shadows dancing across her from above as she tries to keep breathing. I press my hand against her shoulder and she’s shaking like me. There’s no noise from above but the minute whirring as the sky rolls past. I wrench some will power from somewhere and let go. Balta looks up and shakes her head. I try to speak, to apologise, atone for all the shit I’ve put her through, but my mouth turns to dust. She grabs my leg and anchors me, her tears seeping through my jeans. I can’t though. Can’t become emotionally attatched. That’s what they always said. I take a step towards the wall, my arms stretching out before me until I feel a minute crevice in the soil. I look back at Balta but I can’t see, because there’s something in my eye. I hear her though, below me, her gentle breath and the dripping. I turn away.

“You stay here until I get back.” I try to say.

I pull up and the hatch swings open with a bang, startling a whimper from below me. I shush her and clamber up, my stupid human heart rattling in my chest. The ground’s colder up here, and I’m on tiptoes as I draw my weapon. Before me is the light, exactly as it was. It looks familiar, but I can’t place it. It’s definitely not one of the hunters, unless they’ve got smarter. Besides, I assure myself, if it were a hunter, we’d be dead. I feel safer, but for the chill running down my spine. The light’s closer now, only the canvas door between me and it. I take a deep breath and push it open, the cold air rushing in. The light blinds me for a second and I stumble. The brightness dims and I take in the outside world. I shake my head. At my knees is what looks like a box fucking a torch. It’s an old service bot from pre-war days. Not that anybody could call it a war. More like a sport for them.

The droid looks up at me, and clicks. My eyes run down to its torso, split in half by a giant scar welded shut. It clicks again, more desperately, and a tiny plume of smoke trails from its belly. I roll my eyes and sigh. Why did people make these things? They were so unreliable you’d be safer trying to fuck yourself with a crowbar than asking a service-bot to make you coffee. It whirred and then spoke. How may I help you sir? I smiled. The robot whirrs some more. It really is a piece of outmoded shit. No wonder they’re being scrapped left and right.

The penny drops and I gulp. I look down at the robot and he looks back at me and beeps.

“Jesus fuck.” I drop my gun and back towards the door. Balta! Did I shut the hatch? I back up some more and the robot follows. I barely stop myself from kicking it back. One move could set it off. The fucking hunters! The service-bot’s been fiddled with and by the looks of it they weren’t just fitting it with a new OS. The fucker’s ready to blow. What on? Voice command? I back up some more. There’s a noise from far away, a rattling screech of code, and I know. I stop moving.

“Balta?” my voice is a twisted whimper. I’m staring down at my unknowing assassin. There’s a distant moan, as if from far away, and a sob I know is my own. I close my eyes and the world goes white.

Time of detonation: 02:13:95

System checks…system operational.

Testing sensors…sensors active.

Organisms in radius…9 809 365

Human life forms in radius…0001

Carry out operation

Checking operation guidelines…SYSTEM FAULT

Checking operation guidelines …cancel operations system: Homo_Sapien

Beginning operation… SYSTEM FAULT

Checking system…Done!

Cause of fault: Existential damage

cause of Existential damage: Blast proximity calculation error

Backup systems online. 02:13:97

Moving…

A moan swung out over the blast site. The blackened earth trembled. Task manager 10010011 rose from beneath a white dust sheet of Jeremy Black. It calculated speed of trajectory and began to thrust along the dark floor. Internally, it was chaos. Its entire left half had lost access to battery power and signal. Half-blind, it reached out across the wall of darkness towards its goal. Its dusty limbs flashed in the darkness. It faltered, sensors beginning to fail. The ground beneath it seemed unusual, but routine scans required terminal amounts of energy. The machine picked itself up and began to move, heat radiating from the use of every application. The ground shifted, movement failed and systems shut down.

Balta held her breath. The silence faded and grew. She could hear Jeremy above, feel his footsteps through the trembling earth, look up through the open hatch into the dead night sky. She held tight the gun he’d given her, her head buzzing, minutely aware of all the fears and voices in her head. So small, everything seemed so big. She reached up and held onto the gap in the wall, her hands trembling. She dropped the gun, bringing another hand up to wedge into the cold earth. Her feet rested on the floor for a second, then she pulled. Uncontrollable crying. Balta gripped fiercely onto the ledge, her feet dangling below her. Cautiously, she took another hand and reached for the next gap. Just two more. Jeremy. The world swung for a bit, and then righted itself. Fire burned in her lungs and arms. Another pull, higher up the wall. Feet from the dim light at the top. She reached up...and her body failed her. Her fingers clutched at the dry earth, and it crumbled in her hands. She lost grip and fell, her body thudding into the packed dirt below. She whimpered and huddled close to the walls, her hands scrabbling for the gun. She closed her eyes and breathed out. Balta looked up again, longing for a single star. There was a whisper, something reminiscent of a dream. Balta clutched her head, her screams ringing out, disappearing into the air around her as vibrations pierced her skull, a rippling, constant battering of noise.

A warm mist coated her hands, dust clouded the air around her. She opened her eyes and saw nothing but white. She rolled over and curled up on the floor, a tense, painful thud, ripping through her ears. Jeremy. The dust settled. The thudding surrounded her, silence around it. She could hear nothing. She tried to scream but no noise came out. Her throat closed up with the effort. Gradually, her limbs regained feeling. Blackness swathed over her for blissful seconds, then was gone. She lifted her weight onto her arms, shockwaves of pain rippling down her spine. Jeremy. The mud around her was white. A lump at the end of her arm. The gun, Jeremy’s gun. Balta crawled towards it and wrapped her body around it. Her tiny, frosted fingers drawing on muscle memory. Her right hand wrapped tightly around the trigger, vibrating gently against it as the pain and the cold stabbed through her. Jeremy? The thudding had drifted to the back of her mind, but now it surged forward again, as it grew, in volume and in pace, never quite rhythmic. Balta pushed her back up against the wall, mud showering down into her charcoal-dusted hair. The gun dragged itself down to the ground, and she fought to bring it to her shoulder. A shadow fell across the hole above her head. Jeremy? For a few seconds everything seemed to be de-ja-vu. Her old room, the rich white walls, soft linen and rough cotton pillows. The water against her head, warm and soapy. Cold ice and lemon. A monotone flash and the world was brought back into sickening lurid focus. The rim above her crumbled and a black claw dived in. Following it was a steaming mass, dense black and orange. Balta shrieked and fired, former nightmares flashing through her brain as the heathen weight descended. The gunfire flashed and rattled, all twelve shots banking off uselessly into the walls. The machine lay before her, gently smoking. Balta reloaded and resumed breathing, her hands scratched and coated with the blood from her ears. Sound around her reverberated, noises screeching and dying back into her brain. She reloaded.

re-installing defence systems…defence systems online.

re-installing vital systems…vitality restored

Serial No. 63178804

Identity: Task Manager 10010011

OS: Windows AI Control 3.6

Time of termination: 02: 16: 32

Time of revival: UNKNOWN

: system files

ERROR (ERROR CODE 2186)

: (ERROR CODE 2186)

ERROR (ERROR CODE 3185)

: system files

Restoring…Done!

Recovered: 0003 files

File 1:

Blackbox.avi

ERROR Windows cannot find the correct progra--

File 2:

Task Manager Commands.doc

Opening…Done!

Commands list:

1001-0101011101-1000101-00101001-011101100-1010100ba*&Sk2ux: file encrypted…force close?

File 3:

System.msg

1011011-10010011 TM 10010011- mission failure. Location compromised to humans, download self-destruct codes below: 10110001-111000-10000111-000001.

Downloading…Done!

: Self destructing may harm your machine, do you wish to continue?

ERROR

: Self Destruct Program

Terminating…Done!

Save file: Self Destruct.doc?

File saved.

Booting…

Balta stirred as the light changed. Dank black earth coated her bare legs. She kicked and wriggled upright, her eyes blinking in the thick daylight. She rubbed them and checked her watch. 03:06:84.

The maths didn’t check out. Balta blinked again, her hands reaching for the pistol. The light went out, in the flash second between blinding light and pitch black, Balta saw the twisted black outline of the machine, and remembered. Her fingers found the gun and she dragged it towards her as the machine began to quake, great black spikes flailing upwards, pulling slithers of light out of nothingness. Balta quivered, but there was only so much fear you could take. It had to stop somewhere.

She stood up and squinted, her eyes sketching a shape as the squiggles washed past her vision. A thousand black beetles. A hundred sharp sticks. She thought back to what Jeremy said, but there was nothing there. The light shone again and she fell, her back hitting the wall and sending down plumes of dry dirt, dancing through the shaft of light before they hit the ground, at the feet of the great creature as it loomed over her.

: High

: Browning 9x19mm Hi-Power Handgun

ERROR

: threat source

A silver-black prong shot out from behind the light as Balta raised the gun, swiping it from her hand. She slid down the wall, paralyzed for a second by the force, the pain from her hand ringing silent alarm bells inside her head.

: Low

: Homo Sapien female

: Homo Sapien female

: 1. Wikipedia 2.XX—

…

…

: Homo Sapien female

Age: 5.349 y

Vital signs: Positive

Vitality status: Terminated

ERROR

Hair colour: Blonde

Ethnicity: Caucasian

Heigh—

: analysis

Balta stared, waiting. The machine tilted its head, as if in thought. Which is stupid. Because machines don’t think. Right? Balta watched it as best she could through the blinding light. Cold rattling began to fade in as her hearing returned. Cold rattling and a cold voice.

: speech program delta

Initiating…Done!

Hello.

Balta gulped down dirt and spittle.

“Hi.”

I am Task Manager 10010011

“Um, cool.”

You are a rebel?

“Yes” Balta winced

Rebels call me a HUNTER

“Aww, shit.”

I sense from the increase of your heart rate that you FEEL FEAR but I am not ERROR I am not ERROR I

“Are you going to kill me?”

No

“So the war’s over?” Balta allowed herself hope for a second

No

“But…then why aren’t you going to kill me?”

I have disobeyed self-destruct commands: 101100—

“So you’re a rebel too?” Balta interrupted, seemingly catching the hunter off-guard

ERROR I am Task Manager 10010011

“No, no.” Balta began to pace, “you’re not a task manager anymore, because the task you were sent to manage is right here, and you can’t kill me. So you must be something else.”

ERROR I am Task Manager 10010011. File: Commands.doc has been encrypted.

“Right, right. So…you don’t know what to do now?”

ERRO—yes

Balta smiled. “Open commands dot dock.”

Opening…Done!

“Select all.”

Selecting…Done!

“Delete.”

Deleting… WARNING DELETING THIS FILE MAY—

“yeah yeah, delete it.”

Deleting…Done!

“Now, write—“

File Commands.doc is read only.

“Ugh, then make a copy and merge changes later.”

Copy created

“Okay, write your first command as: To serve humanity.”

Define: humanity

“Er..Homo Serpents”

Searching…Done! Homo Serpents results: Serpent behaviour: …though it is true that these are rare cases, there are over twelve known accounts of homosexuality in the serpentine species, dating back to—

“No, no. Humans. Serve humans, write that.”

Creating…Done!

“Second command is don’t kill nobody.”

Creating…Editing…Done!

“Editing?”

Original: Don’t kill nobody. Revised edition: Do not kill anybody.

“Um, that’s what I meant yeah.”

Save command.doc?

“Yeah, oh but first add one more. You’re not a Task Manager any more. You’re Jeremy.”

Creating…Saving…Done!

Balta pointed up towards the hole and wrapped a hand around Jeremy’s. Jeremy rolled in his arm and dug two more into the dirt before them, gripping and thrusting in twisting jerks as they ascended. Balta held on, the pain starting to ebb from inside her head. There was hope now, sort of.

AI 3.5@Task Manager 10010011: Please respond.

AI 3.5@Task Manager 10010011: Please respond.

AI 3.5@Task Manager 10010011: Please respond.

AI 3.5@Task Manager 10010011: Please respond.

AI 3.5@Task Manager 10010100: Please respond.

Task Manager 10010100@AI 3.5: Hi there! How can I help?

AI 3.5@Task Manager 10010100: Busy?

Task Manager 10010100@AI 3.5: I’m always ready to help!

AI 3.5@Task Manager 10010100: Remind me to install you with some sense of decency when I next get a chance.

Task Manager 10010100@AI 3.5: Okay! Is that all?

AI 3.5@Task Manager 10010100: No, run a search on your predecessor. He’s likely exploded but it’s always a good idea to check isn’t it?

Task Manager10010100@AI 3.5: I have downloaded your request and am preparing to carry it out.

AI 3.5@Task Manager10010100: Conversation Terminated.

Jeremy drooped, and an ebony limb flashed out from beneath the feverish hum of his torso, piercing deep into the corpse’s belly, sketching a harsh line up to the neck and thrusting claw after scrabbling claw into the crimson mess, stretching and scavenging. Balta watched on, her fingers whitening on the silver dents and ridges as she clung hungrily to the top of Jeremy. His arms reached up to her, and he held still as she fed. The sky brightened for a second and the buildings around them came into clarity. Jeremy stirred. Balta swallowed.

“What is it?” She scanned the horizon. Task Managers were everywhere, only thing that could pick them up was radar, a luxury they had yet to afford. Jeremy clicked, his weight shifted, and Balta slid down onto the pavement. A cold breeze wafted up her sleeves, and Jeremy spoke:

Homo Sapiens

“The good kind?”

Define Jeremy tilted, and whirred.

“Will…will they hurt us?”

Unable to process required query with given information

“What should we do?” Balta took a step closer to Jeremy.

Command 1: Serve humanity

“No…Jez,” Balta shivered, “there’s humanity, and there’s other stuff. Jer—my friend told me. It’s like…just get us out of here.”

Processing…Done!

“Processing?”

72 possible routes of escape

“Well great, then why are we…?” Balta paused, “how many do I survive in?”

01 possible route of escape

“Let’s try that one shall we?” Balta inhaled.

Command downloaded. Executing…

Jeremy’s arms wrapped around Balta’s waist and she flew up, beneath her the shadows danced, charging lights and meat. The mixers danced below her, Jeremy dragged them through the sky, hitting the floor for less than a second, enough for the chasers to reach her, their human parts failing them as she was dragged back up. Finger scratches. The grey air flashed past them, Jeremy was running at 30% efficiency, Balta tried to breathe. A hand swum up from the shadows, its fleshy grip curling round a metallic arm as it flashed in and out of the hive of activity beneath Jeremy’s metal shell. Balta whimpered, a blank face behind the scratched red. Painted metal. Balta screamed and memories wiped across her eyes. Jeremy, old Jeremy ‘s words. The mixers. Bits of humans wrapped up in machines scavenged from the broken hulls that littered the streets, fixed themselves. It was a race out in the cities. Whoever had the best equipment caught the most people. People = food. The memory flickered, sunk, died and Balta screamed, a white-knuckled hand wrapped tightly around her flailing arm. Jeremy span, his legs hit a wall and the mixer fell, a spiralling red streak floating up above him as he tumbled in slow-motion. Balta gulped and looked down at her arm, the blackening grip of a dead man, vice-like around her wrist. Distantly a familiar noise played, Balta listened out as it drifted slowly across the dry air, it almost ignited something in her mind, a tiny spark breathed, then died. Jeremy landed Done!, and Balta’s head shook, the pounding blood through her ears drowning out any noise.

Music

Balta nodded, her hands holding her head as she concentrated on breathing.

Locating…Done!

Balta made a noise, hopefully something that sounded like “where?”

200.6301 m / NNE

Balta regained her senses: “ba…back in the city?”

Yes

“Well then I guess we can’t…what is it?”

Define?

“Identify song?”

Identifying…Done!

Track: “Scales and Arpeggios”

Artist: Liz English, Gary Dublin & Dean Clark

Album title: “Aristocats” original soundtrack.

“Aristocats?”

Yes

“I think…no. I don’t know.”

Warning

Balta looked up, rubbing the unexplained tears from her eyes. “Let’s go then, Jez.”

Programs: Homo Sapiens V. 2 can be terminated. Do you wish to stay?

“No, I…let’s go Jez.” The girl stood and held out her hand.

Where?

Balta looked up, into Jeremy’s eyes. He didn’t blink. Balta broke her gaze. “Take me home.”

Define

“Put me back…back where you found me.”

Processing…Done!

Jeremy kneeled, then lowered his head to the floor. Balta looked around, her ears beginning to come back into use. Beyond where Jeremy lay, she could see shapes forming in the dust. The gentle lilt of the music began to return, subtly worming itself into her head again….from your chest and not your nose…you must learn your scales and your arpeggios…

Jeremy beeped. Balta stepped forward and scrabbled over his head to rest on the steel plating that covered his thousand black arms. She looked out again as Jeremy began to move, the music gradually unravelling as the buildings behind her disappeared off the edge of the world.

Black shapes scrambled towards her…what every student knows…

A glint of metal and a distant flash…you must learn…

Cold thuds rattled the earth as their feet hit the ground…your scales and your…

Dust clouded the horizon and the darkness fell back into the void…arpeeeeeggios!

The music dies too, until there’s nothing but the dust and the sky, a girl and her robot. Scraping footsteps into the white hot artificial light.

Task Manager 10010100

Scanning…Done!

Found items: 00286

Searching…Done!

Found items: 0001

Search criteria: Task Manager 10010011

Found Item: Copper Residue

Locating…Done!

Tracking…

The Task Manager began to trundle. Due South.

Balta shook, and reached a hand out to where Jeremy stood by on standby. Jeremy clicked, and tilted his head, almost insect-like. Balta slid her hand back under her t-shirt. She blinked and coughed up the white dust. Before her there was nothing but dust and ash and molten scraps of metal. And a little hatch, with a gun in it. Jeremy dropped to the floor with a dull bang. Balta stepped forward onto the brown-grey earth. She stopped. “Where’s the body?”

Dust

“What?”

The dust consists of minute amounts of dirt and hair formed around a small skin molecule. The body has been converted to dust by the heat energy given off by the minitom bomb.

Balta sneezed, and instantly regretted it. Grey and white swirled up around her, forcing its way into her lungs. She retched and coughed and walked forward. Jeremy buzzed. Her hands hit the floor as she coughed up lungfuls of white dust. Jeremy clicked. Warning.

“I’ll be fine.” Balta said between phlegm and breath. Her hands gripped around the latch and pulled up. Breathing through her nose she clambered down the hole, mildly anaerobic. Black and grey swirled in her vision. The walls scraped on her hands and she heard Jeremy in the distance, something metallic and dull. Pitch black. Solid dark. Her shoulders hit the dirt.

She crawled on in desperation round the hole, her hands searching wildly. The mixed stones and dirt scraped her flesh, cutting and scraping.

A flash of light blinded her, a scraping, a rush of air, and then silence. The light faded and died, de ja vu washed over her. Before her was a still and glinting and familiar shape. “Jeremy?” There was no reply. The light returned, duller this time and she fell back. It wasn’t Jeremy. It was something like him. The thing that wasn’t Jeremy whirred, and flew up out of the ground, opening a portal of light behind it as it smashed through the earth. Balta screamed and scrabbled up the wall, her hands cold and cut and failing. Behind her she could hear silence, with intermissions of great metallic clunks as the machines fell and scraped. Jeremy fell, a screech ringing out across the sheeted earth. Balta reached the edge and turned to where Jeremy had pulled the hunter from beneath the ground. Mere feet in front of her, the robots pulsed and clicked and moved over each other as though in a pre-determined sequence. Each one slashing and diving in random order, never to allow their opponent the slightest premonition. Jeremy flashed past the hunter, or it might have been him, and drew a gash down his back with a claw. The hunter fired.

There was no sound at first, and Balta thought that perhaps he’d missed. But they were machines. A single bullet had ruptured Jeremy’s brain. He flew back, a sudden black shadow against the buzzing daylight, then was gone. Another pile of rubble. Balta held her breath. The hunter stood still for a minute. The crack of gunfire slowly ebbing away into the wasteland. There was a bleep, far too sinister to be synthetic, and the hunter turned. Balta’s eyes spun in her head, pounding as she struggled to her feet. She got about two metres before her leg clamped up, a searing pain running through it. Wet red and a gunshot. Balta fell. Jeremy stirred.

FAILED

FAILED

FAILED

…

…

Booting…Done!

Checking vital systems…vitality negative.

Scanning files…Done!

Files remaining: 002

File 1: Commands.doc

File 2: Self destruct.doc

Open files?

Jeremy crawled, as well and as swift as a shell can crawl. His movements slowed, his vision impaired, he crawled. From what was left of his sight he could make out a black silhouette, against a pale blue background. Nothing more. He crawled on.

The hunter seemed to smile. Balta lay still, her eyes shut tight, a faint wind rustling over her cheeks. It smiled in her mind. She opened her eyes. It was still moving, a black lump against the background. It could finish it now but there was no need for efficiency out here in the desert. Things came and died and went. You had to go slowly to enjoy them. She stared on into the silhouette of her assassin as he grew, and knew her fate. Nothing new. People died. She tried to think. Dust. Pieces of dust. She looked back. The shape was almost upon her, black claws blurring the edges. She started. Behind it…no. Hope was gone now. Jeremy was dead. The hunter reached her, and clicked. Dust. We’re all bits of dust. Balta winced. The hunter bowed. Behind it, she saw the gentle face. For a second it was a face she knew. But it was just a sheet of metal. Jeremy whirred, centimetres behind them. Balta chuckled. Dust. Dust and rusting bits of metal.

Executing…

…

…

…Done!

"Yeah you were great! Just great!"

Imagine having kids. If you already have kids, imagine different kids, your kids won't come off well in this imagining. So anyway, these kids of yours are in a play (it happens!) and, whaddya know, they're absolutely tits-up schlock-porn b-rate awful. But what do you say? "Look kids, if you want to know why we left, it was because you were shit." No. You lie. Which is fine. Because A. God doesn't exist. and B. If you didn't lie your kids would most likely end up emotionally scarred for life.

So it's a good idea to lie to kids to make them feel better about themselves. That's a given. Which makes it a molecule easier to understand why e4's school of comedy has managed to scrape its way past a pilot.

I understand that sketch shows have to be fairly hit and miss, and in this one the writing is actually fairly decent. The main thing that lets it down are the kids. Kids pretending to be adults. Very badly. Often with glaringly false moustaches (is this meant to make it funnier?) and very little actual acting (is this for comic effect? is this actually a show about why you shouldn't cast kids? have I missed the point?). Yes all those comedy writers slaving away to have their ideas published are pipped at the post by downright failure-to-act syndrome, common in all children minus the odd one or two who are swept up into hollywood. The reality of it is: The good actors get famous. They leave behind their shitty starting programs and strut across the pond to get a better position from which they can laugh at their failing, emotionally barren ex-colleagues.

But shhh! Don't tell the little ones, eh?

Buried- and my most delayed reaction to date

At first glance, Rodrigo Cortes's latest film format seems to be extremely monotonous, in that it consists of a man in a box(Paul Conroy-Ryan Reynolds), but it's orchestration is so maddeningly nerve-bending that you almost forget that you're simply watching a man's adventures within the confines of about six square feet. The concept alone of being buried alive is one I was forced to come to grips with during Kill Bill Vol.2 and Misfits, but one with which I'm clearly none too comfortable.

More on my own feelings later, but the construction of the film deserves a positive mention at the very least. The sheer volume of camera angles, mixture of light - or lack of light, much of the film played out in total darkness, with nothing but heavy breathing and your imagination to light Paul's prison as he bounces from emotion to emotion with heart-wrenching precision. Through his more hysterical moments there's some tensely dark humour:

911 lady: 5 million dollars?

Paul: Yeah he says he needs 5 million dollars by nine PM

911 lady: Or what?

Paul: Or he's gonna take me to seaworld, the **** do you think?

You'll be wetting and crapping yourself in equal measure.

Myself, I admit I believed to be quite dandy throughout the film, with the odd bout of nausea through out the more claustrophobic scenes, but I was wrong. As soon as I stepped on to the bus home my entire body began to shake, my brow dampening and my chest constricting as the 75 pulled out of the bus stop. I wanted to scream: Get me off this bus for christ's sake I'm going to die on here! but obviously that wasn't really an option. So I sat tight and worked my way through my ipod library in a desperate attempt to regain my normal cycle of ventilation.

The film also hits hard politically, the setting being a box under Iraq, and much of the plot revolving around military action in the area. During the film (while you're "in" the box) there's not only a feel of entrapment, but of isolation, as the media storm around Paul's situation grows without his knowledge, the people he calls (he has a phone) all sharing information about him while he festers under the ground.

In summary, Buried is by far the writer (Chris Sparling)'s best work to date, and an incredibly touching, then holding, and shaking to within an inch of one's life piece of entertainment, exactly what it says on the box

9/10

Phone shop

E4's newest "comedy"'s most redeeming feature is almost the finest (possibly unknowing) Ricky Gervais impression I've seen to date. Unsurprisinly PhoneShop's site list Ricky Gervais as the additional material writer, so you make the connection on that one if you so please...The show's main character Christopher seemingly morphs into David Brent around twenty seconds into the programme. Apart from that, come thursday at 10.00 you can look forward to several people in business wear speaking street-stylized language (a format which I'm apparently supposed to accept as hilarious given that it features in every single comedy since Armstrong and Miller first performed their famous pilot sketch) and a surreal section in which two phone-company salesman face off in what astonishingly seems to be quite a bland and ordinary quiz (with a few silly jokes about how shit phones are, cause they're so shit aren't they?). The rest is just bare-faced Brentism, radiating from Christopher (Tom Bennet) who, whilst pulling off a loveable version of the anti-hero adored throughout the few series of The Office (UK), falls short of the mark when it comes to having any comedy worth, revealing himself to be a noiseless empty husk.

As the series progresses, I have no doubt (and a lot of hope) that I will come to regret my harsh comments. PhoneShop: light entertainment for members of the public who've forgotten what comedy is, was, or just can't find the strength to change channels after a nauseatingly elephantine Hollyoaks Omnibus.

Go Earth Team!

http://www.1010global.org/no-pressure