Monday 27 September 2010

Vote Patrick McCallion!

After your support in the first round, Patrick McCallion has made it through to the semi-final of the Yobi Sing Competition.


So, check out his below message, his entry, and VOTE!


Hey All,

The Yobi Sing Semifinals are now ON! You can view my entry at http://yobi.tv/yobising/semifinalists/view/417 and if you like the entry (at the bottom of the page) you can vote for me!

(If you didnt know Yobi Sing is an online Singer/Songwriters competition with a top prize of $25,000 and VIP Grammy tickets!)

So Please give us a vote!

Patrick xxx

Monday 20 September 2010

Billy's Ugandan Journal

Day 4 - 17th July

Monday had finally arrived; we were ready to start our work in the schools and community. Like everyone I could not wait and was buzzing with excitement about what laid ahead for the rest of the trip.  I cannot start my day four journal without first mentioning the Sunday night entertainment the rest of the team thoroughly enjoyed throughout the entirety of Sunday night. Jody and Louis were kind enough to give us a musical masterpiece of coughing and sneezing all night long, although incredibly frustrating for one and all, I must say that the synchronisation between coughs was first class and that the duo would not look out of place performing on ITV’s ‘Britain’s Got Talent’.

After a reasonably early start and another healthy breakfast full of fruits completely new to me, we walked up to an area called Mbuya to meet the organisation we would be working with out in Uganda, Reach Out.  Reach Out is an organisation set up in Uganda to help spread the awareness surrounding AIDS and to support both the current and next generation on how the illness can be best countered. To find out more about what Reach Out does and some of their background I recommend that you logon to their website.

To be continued on Tuesday... 

Monday 13 September 2010

Billy's Ugandan Journal

Day 3 - Sunday 18th July
After the first decent night’s sleep in a few days we were all much more spritely and ready for day three of the trip. The accommodation we were staying in was much better than what I expected. I was very worried at first when I saw the amount of mosquito nets and precautions, but, they weren't as bad as first expected luckily. Although the room was very basic, it had all the necessary ingredients to make it homely and fit for purpose; 17 enthusiastic people from the Calder Valley.


The site we were staying at was entitled 'Red Chilli Hideaway', and was used exclusively for people visiting Uganda, so as you can imagine there was quite a range of nationalities present, all doing various different projects during there time in Kampala. Without doubt the biggest attraction (in both aspects of the word) at Red Chilli was the resident pig. Myself and the other six lads were especially amazed, constantly standing and staring at what truly looked like a freak of nature. It didn't take long either until we gave the beauty a nickname, David Hyatt I believe naming it 'Pigdebayor', presumably due to it's relation to the footballer Emanuel Adebayor, exactly what that relation was I do not know, but the name soon caught on. I can guarantee that this won't be the last you hear about Piggy...

We were using this Sunday as a day to adjust and acclimatise to our new surroundings before starting our project on the Monday. This was important, as we'd literally turned up to somewhere a million miles from home, where there are very few similarities. We just needed to get a grasp of the way people communicated, what the weather and climate was like and a bit of an understanding of the local area. With this in mind, we ventured into the city centre of Kampala. From where we were staying it took a good 20-25 minutes drive to get into the centre, this was because of the amount of traffic on the roads of Kampala and the amount of stoppages too due to the lack of traffic facilities. One of my favourite times of the day during my time in Uganda was the travelling believe it or not. I felt that winding the window down and coasting along the roads gave everyone a good outlook of the street life in Uganda, and how the different areas varied. I don't think I ever looked away from the window when I was travelling from place to place out there.

We'd all seen the impoverished conditions from just travelling around since we'd landed on Saturday morning, but the first time it really did home and sink in was during our journey to Kampala on Sunday morning. We stopped in a stand still of traffic approaching the city centre, and with everyone's windows wide open, we were open to passing by Ugandan's communicating with us, as a car full of Mzungus (white travellers) wasn't something that would be seen very often at all in Uganda. It felt a little intimidating at first, but we soon realised, after talking to our drivers and Erin, that it was due to the rarity of white people in Uganda and therefore nothing to be worried about. Whilst the vehicle was stopped we experienced a rather unpleasant and awkward incident when we were approached by a young child stood in the middle of the road who asked us for money. I don't think I've felt as bad and awkward before, it felt horrible, luckily I wasn't the person to make contact with the child because I wouldn't have known how to react there and then. I cannot talk for everyone else, but I have quite a large lump in my throat for the next five minutes whilst I thought about what we'd all just experienced. But this would be the kind of problem we would have to front up to for the next two weeks.

We spent a couple of hours in Kampala, mainly just touring round and looking at some of the sites. We had a look at a market, but the most memorable place we visited was the Church. We managed to walk in to the usual Sunday morning service, and at first I was gob-smacked by the turnout, it was packed. However, the mood seemed very sombre, and for some unknown reason there were several television cameras in the church. Now, unless they were doing the Ugandan version on Songs of Praise, this wasn't a normal Sunday morning service. 

The bizarreness then rose to the next level when the King of Uganda, escorted by security walked into the Church and pulled up a pew. This was all too surreal, we had to find out what was going on. We found the Vicar, and we could not believe it when he told us that this service was in fact the funeral of the King's Mother! Oh dear. How inappropriate could it be? 18 mzungus walking into a Church service unannounced, sitting down, poorly dressed  in shorts and t-shirts whilst the rest of the congregation, close friends and family were sat down, dressed immaculately in black, waiting for a very important service to take place. What are the chances? We waited until we left before we all had a good laugh about the mistake we had just made. Classic. And this was just day 3...

Friday 10 September 2010

My Musical Biography


Seamus Barnett has been involved with The Painter's Chronicle for almost a year now, performing at The Big Night In and the Ramble ‘n’ Rave. His extensive band history includes Paintseamusyellow, Pink Elephant fish, Sense Offenders, Political Suicide, as well as appearances on Phoenix FM. In this new series of fortnightly posts Seamus shares how he found music, how it has affected his life and how it is shaping his plans for a musical future.

Chapter 1 – Discovering Music

I sit here, writing this, listening to music. I like music. 

Music means different things to each person, to some it is about the musicality, so the harmonies and how good it is technically, to others it is about the style, for example pop, which is very much about creating not musically challenging but mainstream average records, a lot of pop is about the image given by the band, Lady Gaga for example. Please do not think that I do not like the bands I talk about unless I explicitly express it. A lot of people might see me calling Lady Gaga mainstream all-about-the-image band is a bad thing, but it is not.  

I found music in two different ways, firstly through my brother who influenced greatly my musical taste, he showed me Metallica, who were my first favourite band. Slowly he developed my musical taste, and then I began to develop my own musical taste through that. This was all heavily influenced though after I started to play guitar, I wanted to play guitar to these songs, and Metallica was perfect, I then got into bands like Children of Bodom and various other thrash metal bands (including embarrassingly enough dragonforce, who I THINK ARE BAD!) the other major influence was concerts, at an early age I was told by my Brother what bands were good and what were bad, for example Trivium – bad and Marilyn Manson – good. But all that changed when my dad came home one day asking if I would like to go and see Trivium live in Bradford, as this would be my first gig even though I had been taught to change the channel when Trivium came on TV I leapt at the opportunity, and started to listen to them lots, realizing I did actually like this music and learning all of their songs! The gig was incredible, and I was a convert.  

From there I then went on to discover various different types of music through different ways, partly through media like magazines and TV, radio, and sometimes through people, especially girlfriends i’ve found! So now I like almost any genre of music! To give you a sample of just how varied that is I will quickly do a totally random shuffle on my i-Tunes and be totally truthful with the results. 

Paintseamusyellow (my band!), Lostprophets, Michael Jackson, Trivium, Arctic Monkeys, Glen Hansard, Kill Paradise, Bullet For My Valentine 

A lot of the music isn’t as mainstream as that bunch, but a shuffle is a shuffle!(N-Dubz totally just came on!) 

So that was how I first discovered music, the internet has helped greatly. Next time I will tell the story of beginning to write music and learning guitar.

Wednesday 8 September 2010

The Greatest and Cheesiest Movie Quotes of All Time

The quotes that appear in films can make them successful or laughable. Hopefully after this you will be moved by some quotes, amused by others and cringe at some of the lines that should never have made it onto a screenplay. So settle down boys and girls, gather round the campfire and listen in as I tell you a story.

The Top 10 Cheesiest Movie Quotes of All Time

10. Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) said of Joseph Takagi (James Shigeta) in Die Hard - "Mr Takagi won't be joining us, for the rest of his life"
Everybody loves Die Hard even if it does contain some wonderfully camp lines like this one. 

9. Auric Goldfinger (Gert Frobe) to James Bond (Sean Connery) in Goldfinger - Bond "Do you expect me to talk?", Goldfinger "No Mr Bond, I expect you to die".
Again everybody loves the Bond series but they do have a habit of letting their children write some of the important lines.

8. Ben Gates (Nicholas Cage) to the rest of the group in National Treasure Book of Secrets - "Pour water on the rocks it makes them go dark"
God knows what they were doing when they decided National Treasure required a sequel but they did create one of the funniest lines of any of the movies.

7. Johnny (Tommy Wiseau) to Mark (Greg Sestero) in The Room - "I did not hit her, I did not hit her..Oh hi Mark"
One of the worst films ever made, The Room is a 2003 melancholy romantic drama that cost $6,000,000. The acting is so wooden that if they want to make some of the money back I'm sure Ikea would be able to craft a chair out of them.

6. Kitana (Talisa Soto) to Sindel (Musetta Vander) in Mortal Combat: Annihilation - Kitana "Mother....your alive!", Sindel "Too bad....you...must die"
The line is awful but the delivery is what makes this such a hilarious line. Another reason why you shouldn't make films about games.

5. Unknown Actors in Shark Attack 3: Megalodon - "It's a pressure valve, it won't open unless there's tremendous pressure."
It's a straight to video South African film so the omens weren't good but just what were they thinking with this line.

4. Lieutenant John Harper (Duke Moore) in Plan 9 from Outer Space - "But one thing's sure, Inspector Clay is dead, murdered, and someone's responsible."
Another cult classic, and home to some of the greatest lines in cinema history. Unfortunately this isn't one of them.

3. Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser) and Evelyn O'Connell (Maria Bello) in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor - Rick "I. Really. Hate. Mummies.", Evelyn "I think the feelings mutual."
The first Mummy film was great and just fun but as they went on they got more and more self important and the number of camp interjecting lines got greater.

2. Cataline Stone to Ben Carpenter (John Barrowman) in Shark Attack 3: Megalodon - Cataline "I'm exhausted," Ben "Yeah, me too. But you know I'm really wired. What do you say I.... take you home and eat your pussy"
Again John Barrowman attempts some serious acting and fails miserably. But with a line this good no one will mind if he does any more.

1. Neville Flynn (Samuel L Jackson) in Snakes on a Plane - "Enough is enough. I've had it with these mother f*cking snakes on this mother f*cking plane."
I didn't really like this film. But this quote despite being stupid has made it far more famous than it ever needed to be.

The Top 10 Best Movie Quotes of All Time

10. Maximus Meridius (Russell Crowe) in Gladiator - "My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next."
I loved Gladiator as a film and although this isn't the best line in the film, it is the most famous.

9. The King of the Dead (Paul Norell) in Lord of the Rings: Return of the King - "Who enters my domain?"
Again the Lord of the Ring's films are amazing and they were a major part of my childhood. This is one of the best lines in the film.

8. William Wallace (Mel Gibson) in Braveheart - "They may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom."
Braveheart gets a bad rap but in my view it is a great film and some of the scenes are great and moving, and the end is spectacular.

7. Red (Morgan Freeman) in Shawshank Redemption - "Andy Dufresne...who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side."
The first of 2 Shawshank quotes, a film this good deserves all the praise it gets.

6. Dr Rumack (Leslie Neilsen) to Striker (Robert Hays) in Airplane! - Rumack "Can you fly this plane and land it?", Striker "Surely you can't be serious?" Rumack "I am and don't call me Shirley."
One of a number of great comedy quotes in Airplane! The funniest film ever made.

5. Bill Kilgore (Robert Duvall) in Apocalypse Now - "I love the smell of napalm in the morning."
Another great film and recently voted the best film of all time by Channel 4. This is easily the best quote of the film.

4. Warden Samuel Norton (Bob Gunton) in Shawshank Redemption - "I believe in two things, discipline and the bible. Here you'll receive both. Put your trust in the Lord, your ass belongs to me. Welcome to Shawshank."
An excellent quote because it sets a hideous scene. This is now home for the rest of these convicts' lives.

3. Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) in Annie Hall - "I don't want to move to a city where the only cultural advantage is being able to make a right turn on a red light."
Another great comic line about San Francisco by the master of comedy himself.

2. Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) in Fight Club - "Welcome to Fight Club. The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about fight club."
Fight Club questioned the consumerism of America and how this was affecting people. It's also great fun.

1. Don Corleone (Marlon Brando) in Godfather - "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse."
The don decides to "encourage" a film maker to employ Johnny Fontaine. The next scene is a classic.

I hope you enjoyed my list of the best and worst quotes. I hope to provoke conversation so tell me where I went wrong and what you agreed with. 

Thanks.
Sam Larner

Tuesday 7 September 2010

Calder Valley FC Claim Historic Win

Newly established Calder Valley FC claimed their first ever victory tonight at the expense of local rivals Royal Oak Rangers in a 9-6 thriller. The team, playing in only their fourth competitive 5-A-Side fixture upset the odds after 3 straight, disastrous defeats, but after a positive showing tonight against an experienced outfit it seems as though the boys are finally on the up!

Zacc Salter Reports...


The game was level for only 2 minutes before Royal Oak Rangers opened their account for the evening, action was immediately taken though as Zacc Salter was replaced by departing Max Wartelle and Calder drew level shortly after through a Jack Gormley goal. A flurry of chances and post hits followed, the ball must have hit Royal Oak Rangers' post about 3 or 4 times in the space of 2 minutes. Aidan Clegg was then brought off for Salter and there were chances and goals at each end. At half time Calder Valley FC lead 4-3 thanks to goals from Eli Hey and a Gormley trebble.

James Oliver started the second half in goal replacing Calum Paramor, with Clegg also dropping to the bench. At the second half kickoff there was an immediate equaliser, but this was no trouble for Calder Valley who quickly managed to regain the lead again through Hey. There were many chances thereafter and goals galore through Salter, Gormley and Hey, not to mention a frustrating disallowed goal for Salter which saw the game end at a brilliant 9-6, lifting the team spirits for Valley who face top of the league FC Himmat next week.


Team: Calum Paramor, Zacc Salter, Aidan Clegg, Jack Gormley, Eli Hey,
Subs: Max Wartelle, James Oliver

Monday 6 September 2010

Billy's Ugandan Journal

Day 2 - Saturday 17th July
After a couple of short hours in Istanbul airport, mulling over whether we should all chip in to buy a few thirst quenchers for the remainder of the journey, we were soon boarding the plane for Entebbe. There was a slight delay, which, at first was a little worrying, but with us all soaked of our remaining energy we didn’t enquire, we simply sat there and waited and when the time finally came we all boarded the plane like excited, yet drained zombies.


The flight was more or less incident free. We all managed to get a few hours sleep, well, not quite everyone; Jody and Mary decided that at 3am in the morning, it would be a great time to get cameras and camcorders out to document the occasion. Fantastic! Just what we all wanted! Where they got the energy and drive from I do not know, but what I did know was that the other 15 people in the group would be laughing last later on in the day. 


I was fortunate enough to get a window seat for this leg of the journey, which truth be told is imperative for me usually, but for this trip it is the only part I desperately wanted one.  I really wanted to see from above what Uganda looked like, was it hilly or flat? What were the buildings and towns like? What were the roads like and was there any traffic on them? These are just are just a few samples of the questions I was asking myself as we were descending into Entebbe International Airport. My initial thoughts were actually how green and landscaped Uganda was and how many roads there were, however, these were not quite the roads I travelled along every day back in the UK. 


When we finally landed, roughly 7.30am in the morning, it instantly hit me what a massively different country Uganda was from the UK, just from the airport. To walk off an aeroplane and walk unescorted across a good few hundred metres of tarmac would not be ratified in around 90% of the world. There was only one other aeroplane at the airport, and there was very few facilities that modern day airports contain. If I had not just walked off an aeroplane, and the other ‘Air Uganda’ wasn’t to my right, I would not believe I was in an airport the building was very basic as well. Sadly some things don’t change anywhere in the world though, we all had to fill out several pieces of paperwork to grant us access to the country. Instead of taking 5 minutes, it actually took us around 30, due to two pens being brought between 17 of us and just about everyone asking, ‘How long are we here for?’ A positive and efficient start... 


We then collected our baggage and the worries and panic of somebody losing theirs on the connecting flight were addressed with a relatively quick delivery of everyone’s luggage. Thank goodness for that! Soon after we were reunited with our project leader,
Erin, who had travelled out a few days prior to our arrival to prepare any fine details for the project, it was nice to see a friendly face upon our arrival. We were then introduced to our two drivers; Moses and Richard who made us all feel extremely welcome from the first second, helping us with our bags and consistently wearing a smile. I was even more impressed and amazed when they managed to fit all of our bags on the roof of the two vehicles, and even more so when just the odd piece of rope managed to keep them strapped down for the entirety of the journey.

              

We were all ready and good to go and get on the road to our accommodation when were approached by a visitor wishing to travel with us. A middle aged Croatian, Vladimir, was also travelling to Kampala and therefore took it upon himself to invite himself onto our carrier for the journey. We all got talking to ‘Vlad’ and found out more about him and what he was aiming to do whilst in Uganda and he seemed to be a decent enough chap. He was even kind enough to share with us photos of his pet dog and his daughter, who he felt would become a future wife for me. I well and truly flattered whilst the other members of the group were sniggering away and making wedding plans. What was so funny I do not know...


A Typical Ugandan Street Scene
I don’t recall saying too much during the journey to our accommodation, as I was in such deep thought and taking in every little detail that I could see from my window. Everything was so dissimilar and nothing like I imagined. People’s gestures, building structure, transport, travel, the climate and the general vibe and atmosphere were just some of the characteristics that I sensed major differences in. The hour long trip to Red Chilli Hideaway (our accommodation) was like a safari where we all took in our new surroundings and the platform for our living conditions for the next two weeks was laid. I couldn’t wait to get out there to see and experience more, at the moment it was just pictures in motion, but the pictures were well worth seeing and gave a good indication of what laid ahead...

Sunday 5 September 2010

Desert Island Discs Announcement

Just a quick update to let you know that after being unable to pick a castaway during the holidays, due to me leaving the fez of destiny in Todmorden when I left to go on holiday, I have finally got round to picking a name out, and fate has decided that our next castaway shall be our very own editor Joe Cotton.
Keep checking the site over the next week or two for his five Desert Island Discs (and book). 

Thursday 2 September 2010

Todmorden Market - Under Threat From Netto

Photo by 'H is for Home'

Thanks to Jason Elliott for the report
Netto, the chain of ultra-cheap supermarkets now owned by Asda/Walmart, has applied for planning permission to place a store directly opposite Todmorden market.

Needless to say, this could prove disasterous for the market.

Allowing a supermarket that specialises in ultra-low prices to be positioned directly opposite the market would be the death-knell for local traders.

Profits from the market by-and-large continue to circulate in theTodmorden economy whereas the profits from Netto don't even stay in the UK.

It is also a well known fact that, wherever they are, markets attract people into a town, helping boost the wider economy.

On the supermarket front, Todmorden already has Lidl and Morrison so has no need at all for a Netto.

For a good overview of the delights of Todmorden Market, check out this article on the H is for Home website.

If you'd like to object to this planning application of Netto's, and have literally a couple of minutes to spare, visit the Calderdale planning section where there is a very simple form on which you can log your objections to this application.

Please note that the expiry date for objections is Friday, 3rd September, so if you want to help, please get cracking!

Wednesday 1 September 2010

Film Review With Sam Larner

Titanic

Firstly, this review was requested by a friend, so if you have any other requests I'll be able to try and fulfil them as long, obviously, as I've seen the film.

Titanic, is a 1997 film which basically the entire world has seen. It was the highest grossing film of all time until Avatar came along. However due to Avatar being in 3D it cost more to see it so Titanic is still the most watched film in cinemas of all time. It features an all star cast including Di Caprio, Winslett, Bernard Hill and Victor Garber (who played Jesus in Godspell).

Firstly this is what is wrong with Titanic. The acting is very wooden at times especially towards the end. It is also very long and I would suggest overly long especially in the central segment. Also it's playing to the Oscar crowd which seems a bit cynical especially when it appears that all you have to do to get an Oscar is make people cry.

However Titanic is one of very few films that can have so many flaws and yet still be an excellent film. It is over 3 hours long yet it keeps my attention for that length of time. It is also one of few films that create an excitement whenever they're on and are basically liked by everyone who's seen it. I stand by my comments on the poor acting but to be honest it doesn't really take away from what is a brilliant film. The number of memorable parts in the film which have affected society is amazing. It is now impossible to go to the front of a ferry and not pretend to be Rose with your arms spread out. It also offers good survival advice, when you're shipwrecked grab hold of a large fancy wooden door and wait for a Welshman in a boat, all invaluable advice.

When you ask people what the best films of their generation where you will have people born in the 60's saying that they had the best Bond films, then people from the 70's can say that had the Star Wars franchise before it turned pants. The 80's had great films like ET, Indiana Jones and Rain Man, but for us 90's kids we had Terminator, Die Hard, Independence Day, The Lion King, Jurassic Park, Braveheart and Titanic. These aren't just popular films, these are films that have changed culture. Each of those films has been parodied in Family Guy, that is what the 90's gave us, they might not have been great films but they certainly made an impact.

So the Titanic isn't a great film, it's an amazing experience. So thank you James Cameron but you can leave it at that.

Next week will be a little different, instead of reviews I'll be giving the top 10 best movie quotes and the top 10 worst. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.