Drink from the
furry cup

The ever-vigilant UK Ministry of Defence has come up with a new plan to prevent a repeat of the 1066 Norman invasion. In was 935 years ago that William the Conquer led the invasion which caused all the battle of Hastings type shenanigans and the knitting of a very large tapestry. In the mean time, despite being part of France now, we can only presume that the Normans have been thinking up all sorts of devious plans to re-invade. Whilst ignoring nine centuries of Anglo-French squabbling this is what we at DFTFC believe anyway and in our ‘Exhaustive Search for the Truth’ DFTFC 2001, we set out to prove our drunken theory.

The ‘Exhaustive Search for the Truth’ DFTFC 2001, started in the pub as usual. After checking numerous pints of larger to see if the answer was at the bottom of the glass we were lucky enough to bump into our first potential source. General Sir Wilberforce Cecil Montgomery Oberloncervich is an official big nob in the Ministry of Defence with traditional Handle bar moustache. After warming him up with several bottles of Scotch he was prepared to reveal just about anything.

It seems the problem of a Norman invasion has been troubling the MoD for some time now and it is only recently with the Foot and Mouth epidemic in this country that the answer has come clear. A series of large catapults are to be constructed along the coast near to Dover. Sheep that are infected with the virus will be catapulted in the direction of Normandy. The sheep will have a small explosive devise attached to them. When the sheep is travelling above Normandy the explosive devise will detonate causing the sheep to be sprayed over the largest area possible. The resulting spread of the Foot and Mouth virus over French farmland will annoy the farmers who will start to blockade everything, just as they always do when anything upsets them. The blockades will bring the area to a standstill making any Norman invasion impossible and our counter invasion all the easier.

sheep being loaded onto a catapult ready for launch...

I think you’ll agree that this is a plan which tactical brilliance is matched only by it’s drunken absurdity. It should also be pointed out that the sheep would suffer the minimum of discomfort in the process and would quite possible enjoy the view whilst it is flying through the air.

Before passing out the General also told us of several Ministers who enjoy wearing women’s underwear. We will be bringing these names to you shortly if any of the blackmail cheques don’t arrive

Several months back the media were beset with the story of two (well obviously) Siamese twins. Months of legal wrangling had led to the separation operation going ahead against the parents’ wishes. The reason for this overruling was that had the operation not gone ahead, death was almost certain for both twins within six months. It had been established that the operation would give a very good chance of a long (and normal) life to the stronger twin at the cost of the certain death to the other, who depended on the vital organs of her sister. Following the revelations revealed to us last night, DFTFC can now reveal the shocking truth of what reallyhappened…

Given that the weaker twin’s death was to be a certainty in the course of the operation, there was an uncomfortable atmosphere at last year’s press conference to which DFTFC had originally been invited when it was announced that the condemned twin had indeed died - “despite the best efforts of the doctors”(!). Fortunately, Spunk-Monkey was present to make a sarcastic remark, and though we can’t publish his comment for legal reasons, it was definitely worth getting the both of us thrown out for it. Anarchy! Right on! (etc). The gist of the remark was that the hypocritical errpeople had acted as if the death was unexpected, and tried to imply that they couldn’t be held responsible for the death, when they quite obviously were. What nasty people they are (“whoops! we just killed her accidentally on purpose, like!”)

We were intrigued to hear last night from a staff nurse at St. Mary’s, Linda Fielder, 38, who wishes to remain synonymous. She phoned us following her recent termination of employment and told us of the circumstances of the final stages of the separation: “They had separated the twins except for the shared arteries which kept the weak twin alive. Then the doctors clamped up the exposed bits and pieces and stood back.”

“I couldn’t believe what happened next. One of the doctors went over and pushed through the plastic doors, and came back in with Anne Robinson - yes her off the telly. They gave her this big knife and she walked up to the operating table. Ms Robinson then looked at the twins and sternly said: ‘With the verdict in from the high court, you are the weakest link, goodbye.’ She cut the remaining arteries with one swift chop and the doctors moved in to tidy up the tubes and sew the surviving twin up.”

Anne Robinson - Cruel to be Kind?

We at DFTFC wish to extend our deepest sympathy to the twins’ family. Reports from other quarters that the trolley containing the stricken twin’s body was later spotted disappearing into the hospital kitchen cannot be substantiated.

Well firstly I guess I had best clarify which Evil Dead movie I’m talking about here… why you ask well the movie has gone under the following names (to the best of my knowledge)

• Evil Dead 3
• The Medieval Dead
• Army of Darkness, the Ultimate Experience in Medieval Horror
• Captain Supermarket
• Army of Darkness: Evil Dead 3

and not forgetting of course…

• Bruce Campbell vs The Army of Darkness

Well this is the third Evil Dead movie to be made. The first was a classic, the second was really a remake of the first and was great and the third, well it has to be seen to be believed! This is a perfect blend of horror and comedy, a truly great movie which you can enjoy over and over again. Not that I’m biased towards it. I figure that’s enough of my frantic praise so lets move onto a look at the actual plot. Which by the way means that the following could somewhat spoil your enjoyment of the movie. So why not go and buy it now watch it and then read the rest of the page, that way you get to see a great movie, and we get 2 hits more on the page!

Hero Ash is being sucked into a swirling vortex thingy‡. Ash is transported to ancient times along with his car and trusty chainsaw and shotgun, he is quickly mistaken for a spy and rounded up to be thrown into ”The Pit”, a black hell whence in lurk untold terrors. Anyway to cut a long story (well 86 minutes to be precise) Ash fights back and becomes somewhat of a champion for the people. Being a champion who wants to get home the wise men tell him that be must quest to find the Necronomicon (The book of the dead, as seen in the previous movies) as only this book has the power to return him to the present day.

Our hero goes questing, and runs into some trouble along the way – namely himself! When Ash finds the book he must speak the words told to him by the wisemen…. Well its goes slightly wrong and the Army of Darkness awaken from their graves.

With the Army marching on the Castle all that stands between utter oblivion and hope is Ash, as “Bruce Campbell vs the Army of Darkness”. The battle is a wonderfully filmed part of the film, with skeletons running amok through the castle and scaling the walls. Finally however our hero wins through and returns to the present day… or does he. This is where things become amusing because there are at least two endings for the movie and I’m not going to spoil either. I do however urge you to try to find a copy of the movie that includes both endings (the current release by 4 front video does) as they are priceless.

Well that’s me done raving about one of my favourite movies, I hope you enjoy the movie as much as I do. In summary the movie tagline will do:

Trapped in Time, Surrounded by Evil, Low on Gas…

‡ this is a technical term defining funny things.

Earlier this week a Californian court ruled that online music sharing service Napster must stop trading in copyright material. Despite the company’s claim that most of the songs copied are not the copyrighted ones this ruling has put a bit of a dampener on there efforts.

However the people from Napster have come up with a solution now instead of downloading MP3s user will be able to download beer.

People who belong to the Napster ‘community’ will be able to access beer that is held on other hard drives and download it to there own computers.

Napster chief executive Hank Berry told us that this could be the dawn of a new era of drinking. “This could be the dawn of a new era of drinking” Hank Berry told us. “From now on you will never find yourself stuck in on a Friday night with nothing to drink, they will just be able to log on to the internet and download some.”

As with all good ideas various large corporations and busybodies have already set out to try to ruin everyone else’s fun.

Brewers Whitbreads are already threatening legal action. They claim that as people will now be able to download beer for free this could have an impact on the sale of beer in pubs and off-licences and force price increases. However users of the new service claim that downloading beer will not affect there drinking habits. DFTFC editor Chillibear who is a long time Napster user and renowned alcoholic explained to us why he uses the service. “I only use Napster to sample new beer”, he slurred, “For example last Saturday I downloaded five pints of Stella just to see what it tasted like and then when I decided I liked it I went down the pub and drank another six pints. Then I was sick.”

Various busy-body groups have made comments that this might encourage underage drinking and alcoholism, but quite frankly who cares?

Godspeed You Black Emperor! is a band from Montreal, Canada; at the last count numbering ten (three guitarists, two bassists, violinist, cellist, two percussionists and a projectionist) who individually are not as important as the band as a whole and subsequently change frequently. GYBE!’s politics run along the lines that whole of America is a corporate fuck-up that is going to bring the end of the world in the next few year, but they don’t want to be miss represented so refuse to do interviews. They are purely instrumental, a no keyboards basis is expressly stressed and their songs themselves are as apocalyptic as the titles that describe them. Lift Your Skinny Fists… is a double CD; two tracks each side, each track lasting over twenty minutes contains; pieces of music, monologs, static, field recordings, small instrumental solos and general noise, all along a similar theme. The sleeve notes map it all out for you to make it easier to follow, naming each piece in the track rather than the tracks themselves.

GYBE!’s music is all about the crescendos, they make a song build up through droning rhythms and any way of getting as much noise as possible out of their array of guitars (including the use of: bows, distortion, feedback and screwdrivers), they supply military style drumming and melodies from the sting section and a glockenspiel. This is what makes …Skinny Fists… so satisfying. It is so easy to listen to and at the same time interesting.

The music here takes you from the intensifying waves of ‘Gathering Storm’ and ‘World Police And Friendly Fires’ to the everlasting momentum of ‘Monhiem’ and ‘3rd Part’ to the almighty kick of ‘She Dreamt She Was A Bulldozer, She Dreamt She Was Alone In An Empty Field’. The field recordings emphasise the mood GYBE! are trying to get across; ghost like trains on ‘Terrible Canyons Of Static’, an old man reminiscing about Coney Island, young French girls singing, a Mexican boarder gas stations warning tourists to be wary of the natives and a preacher explaining his visions of God.

This is the world of Godspeed You Black Emperor! This is none corporate, none commercial music for the masses. This music shouldn’t only be heard for any political content because that really isn’t important in the whole scale of things, it should be heard because it’s fulfilling, powerful music and you are not going to hear anywhere else. So lift your skinny fists like antenna to heaven and thank the lord that finally some decent music has come out of Canada.

Hiya,

Well you may have noticed that the frequency of our updates has dropped a little in the last month or two. Don’t worry we are still going! Our feeble excuse is that everyone seems to still be really busy this year…. but we are working on the newest version of the site and when this is released (hopefully sometime in Feb.) we will make a concerted effort to return to our much more frequent regular postings. Till then it’s going to be updates every 10 days or so - I hope :)

Speaking of updates, helter-Skelter has written another Aural Pleasure review which can be read here.