There's something strange in the neighbourhood

I’ve just heard word that the drummer from Vampire Weekend (my new favourite band – ) was hit by a car in London last night and is in hospital with head injuries. Poor bastard. At least his healthcare will be free.

Last night, I had a séance. Well, tried to. Looks like I don’t have the powers within me to channel the spirits of the dead, because fuck all happened. Maybe my new house just isn’t haunted. I grew up in a haunted house, and even though nothing much happened to me post-childhood, it was still a damn eerie house. It just has this atmosphere. The landing is always cold. You’d never stay in it alone and if you did, you had all the lights on. My new house isn’t like that at all. It’s very calm. The only thing that scares us is the constant rumblings in the alley behind the kitchen, leaving us all frozen in our seats looking nervously at one another, wondering what exactly we would do should some maniac climb in through the window. Once, said maniac did climb in through Rachel’s bedroom window. She shot out of bed, told him to fuck off and he did. Crazy days.

So anyway, back to the ghosts. Before I get into it, I’ll clear this up first – yes, I am an atheist, and many people question how an atheist can believe in ghosts, as surely that means there is afterlife, but I read into a lot of Buddhist teachings, which, in a nutshell, state that each body is inhabited by a soul, and as much as I believe that when people die their body will simply perish, the soul can live on. Either in the spirit world or through reincarnation. Besides, there is no way I could have grown up in my parent’s house and not believe in ghosts. They were in every bloody room.

The first one I saw was a little boy called Peter. At first my mum though he was my imaginary friend until one day she said she saw me talking to him and my eyes were fixated on something, as if it were right infront of me, even though to her there was nothing there. I vaguely remember him. We used to play in the living room. I asked him to come to school with me one day and as soon as we left the front door I lost him, and then never saw him again. Then there were the scarier incidents, as we got a little older, like the tape player constantly stopping, rewinding, fast forwarding, all by itself. The night that I was lying in bed and heard a pen rolling across a flat surface, then stop, then roll back again. The night I went to bed with my curtains closed and woke up with them having been pulled open. The weird black figure that ran past the window when me, Vik and Rach were watching a DVD (we looked outside, there was noone there). The time Vik was playing with her new camera phone and took a photo of the landing; when she looked at the picture there was this grey figure at the top of the stairs. The best occurrence ever though, happened to my dad. The only non-believer, oddly enough. Me and Vik had gone on a night out afew years ago, and my dad woke up at about midnight as my Mum has gotten up to go to the bathroom. He saw what he thought was me, standing at their bedroom door waiting for Mum, and then ‘I’ followed her down the landing. He thought nothing of it and went to sleep. The next day he asked me if I was ill.
‘What?’
‘Were you sick last night?’
‘No? What are you on about?’
‘You, last night, in our room. You went with your mother to the bathroom.’
At this point my Mum chimed in: ‘What are you on about? The girls didn’t get in until after 2.’
Dad looked puzzled but said nothing. It was only down to me and Vik badgering him about it later that he told us he’d seen a young blonde girl in a long blue dress following Mum down the landing. I so wish I’d seen that. Ooh, I just remembered another one – afew years ago we were looking through a bag of old photos. There was one from my birthday when I was a kid, and I’m sat on the stairs with my friends and cousins. And then, on the stair behind us is this girl, wearing a very dated dress, just sat smiling. Noone has any idea who this girl is. I’ll try and dig out the picture and scan it, it’s super creepy. I should call Yvette Fielding, get her round. It would make for a killer programme.

An Open Letter to Duffy

Dear Duffy,

After hearing about you on the grape vine for some time now, I decided to look into you further about a month ago. How glad I am that you did. Yes, your song are fabulous, but your talent is what is truly inspiring. I saw you on Jools Holland last week and you are so effortless when you sing; a true talent. You’re at number one, and are about to be thrust into the limelight.

Now, onto the more serious part. The last time I thought this about a new singer was when I saw a certain young female singing over the radio by the name of Amy Winehouse. When I looked her up she, like you, seemed shy, unaware of just how great her voice really is. Perfectly normal looking, a normal figure with long dark hair. Back to Black was later released and yes, she had started up a relationship with some heavy duty liquid eyeliner and ‘dabbled in drugs’, but much was still the same. I bought the album almost immediately as it was so good. And now look at her. So thin she may actually break during high winds, hair that is just plain ridiculous, eyeliner up to her brows, a woeful addiction to heroin and a husband who is ‘incarcerated’ (which she feels she has to remind us of at any given opportunity). It is really very sad, and what with her being Queen of the tabloids these days, the magic in her music is seemingly lost, buried under the tittle tattle and rumours about her dwindling personal life. So Duffy, I ask you this – please take heed. Avoid the seedy clubs, the men who promise the world, the pedestals they will force you upon to make it easier to tear you down. Please just make your music and play your shows, and stay the humble Welsh girl that I saw on TV afew days ago. Be the example others can follow.

Emma

PS: The shoes you were wearing on Jools were killer, please let me have them in return for my sound words of advice.

Now theres a thinker.

So, I saw There Will Be Blood last week, and truly loved it. At the moment, what with awards season, people seem to be choosing their favourite between that and the other big winner, No Country For Old Men. It would seem that people cant possibly like both (kind of in the same way people felt they had to have a favourite between Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings 6 years ago, or the Blur / Oasis battle in the 90’s), and although I personally thought the two films were brilliant, There Will Be Blood edges ahead for me. It really is incredible and I urge you all to see it. Daniel Day Lewis’ performance will make your fucking head explode. Look out for the milkshake line.

HOWEVER, after seeing it, I really thought I had it all figured out. ‘Ah,’ myself and my chums mused over beers, ‘so Eli and Paul weren’t really twins, it was a split personality thing’. Further to this, I then told people of my discovery, much in the same way I would brag when I’d finished a particularly informative film class when I was in college (yes, I studied Film at college. No surprises there). But as things tend to always go with me, it looks like I was totally wrong. I have just put the paper down, after reading an article about the film, and as much as the critic did think the same as me after watching, apparently they must have been twins as their father mentions Paul to Eli. So now I’m just confused. I think I may have to read the book. Now, does anyone have any idea where I can get a copy of ‘Oil!’??

Mad fer it.

'They're actors, darling.'

I am a geek. A film junkie. I am aware of this. I devote so much of my life to watching movies, deciphering movies, then showering the people involved with the movies with much adoration. At the moment, I am obsessed over Young Hollywood. Not those awful ‘It’ girls, but the current slew of 20-something year olds who are so talented its scary. There hasn’t been such a great group of actors in a while. Here are my top 5.

Emile Hirsch.

You know him from: The Girl Next Door, Alpha Dog, Into The Wild.
Should have won an award for: Into The Wild.
Is brilliant because: even at his age he is already Oscar-worthy.

Ryan Gosling.

You know him from: The Notebook, unfortunately.
Should have won an award for: Half Nelson.
Is brilliant because: he works so hard. Goes so far with his research and personal characterisation that he even gets fired for it.

Paul Dano.

You know him from: The Girl Next Door, Little Miss Sunshine, Ballad of Jack and Rose, There Will Be Blood.
Should have won an award for: Fuck, everything. His last few films have all been award worthy.
Is brilliant because: he’s a transformer. Plays a different person in every role. Ironically, he could easily be on par with someone like Daniel Day Lewis in 20 years time.

Shia LaBeouf.

You know him from: Even Stevens.
Should have won an award for: Disturbia. Anyone else would have come off as an interfering perve in that role.
Is brilliant because: he shed the Disney shell. Has serious likeability and an effortless acting talent.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

You know him from: 3rd Rock From the Sun, 10 Things I Hate About You.
Should have won an award for: The Lookout, Brick, Mysterious Skin. 3 of my favourite films and he’s been in them all.
Is brilliant because: he shys away from blockbusters, instead choosing to help make incredible indies.

We're all right where were supposed to be

Eyes are more oval shaped, actually.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind people that just because a song is catchy, this does not automatically make it GOOD. The Feeling can actually go fuck themselves. And One Night Only, for that matter. The Enemy, too.

I vant to suck your blaaaad...

Vampire Weekend. Great band, great song, great video. Awful band name, mind.

Fancy a shave?

Ta'ra, MySpace

Facebook has taken over. MySpace, according to Katy, is well and truly dead. So I'm blogging here again.