Hop on the Bus, Gus

The thing about minced beef is despite appearing varied, in reality you can only do one thing with it. Don’t get me wrong, Bolognese, Burgers, Meat Balls and Cottage Pie are all equally flavoursome; but if you think about it, you just can’t have mince without tomato and once you’ve realize that, you’re fucked. The illusion is shattered and mince is monotonous for ever more. Think about the recipes.

Bolognese- Bit of mince beef, big old can of chopped tomato.

Cottage Pie- Get your mince nice and brown in a pan but don’t forget to add a can of chopped tomato

Meat Balls- You’d better believe those balls are getting socked in a tomato sauce

Burgers- Mince beef patty, onion, salad, bread bun, cheese, .... Hold on a sec, you better whack a slice of tomato on in that bad boy or at the very least a healthy squirt of Ketchup.

It’s all a bloody conspiracy. Mince is about as flexible as a brick and will never excite me again.

So the other day I’m sat eating my Cottage Pie and I have the tomato epiphany, decide that mince is boring and that I need to eat some chicken or something. It’s not an all together remarkable story but bare with me because mince meat is only the very tip of the iceberg. In an instant the soggy pie had launched me into a stream of spectacular new consciousness comparable to those experienced by Hawkins, Einstein or even Shakespeare. So many things out there pretend to be interesting, but like minced beef, just aren’t. Take alcohol for example, sure, whisky tastes different to beer but that doesn’t change the headache. You don’t slur your words in a different accent. Drunk is drunk. The discovery also put pay to my growing love for rap music. It turns out “Boom, boom, boom, bitch” has a sell by date. It was like an apple had fallen on my head and I'd discovered gravity. I’d discovered how to see through things that are shit. I’d been given the gift of Shit-ray goggles. CSI is a great T-V show isn’t it? WRONG!

“Oh what do we have here? A dead body with a can of Lynx shoved up its arse?”

“Pretty much boss, I recon we should listen to The Who and shine a blue light on some shit until we realize that it was the only guy we bothered interviewing in this episode. Oh yeah and he had a twin or something.”

SHIT-RAY'D Give me a knighthood, a big wig and call me Sir Isaac.

Now, on Friday, about half an hour after I finished a bowl of incredibly unsatisfactory Bolognese my friends and I went to see Robin Hood. Now I should qualify this next bit by saying just how much I was looking forward to this film. I really wanted to like it. If you had been in the car on the way to the multi-plex with us you would have been treated to at least three renditions of the song.* I love Gladiator, Russell Crowe inspires me to do great things and Ridley Scott gives me an erection. Unfortunately for Ridley, if you had joined me in the back of the Peugeot, not only would you have noticed my angelic singing voice but you would also have seen me wearing the Shit-Ray goggles. Picture a pair of Ray-Bans with bright yellow lenses and a pink nutty professor swirl. (Unfortunately for the people sat behind in the cinema me I also took along my huge Isaac Newton wig) So after an unacceptable number of adverts, the film began and sure enough under all the gloss and budget the goggles un-earthed a horrible little turd of a film.

I’m not quite sure at which moment within the two and a half hours of detritus it became apparent that the whole thing was a piece of shit but there are a number of contenders. It may have been when Maid Marian led a scantily clad band of (unnecessary) orphan children to the cliffs of Dover to do battle with the French. It may also have been when Russell Crowe opened his mouth and began speaking in an imaginary medieval accent, but having deliberating for some time I decided the worst bit was the story. Not since CSI have I seen such a formulaic piece of nonsense. It’s hard to think of a time when I've have been more disappointed. I now understand how women feel after they have sex with me. For those of you out there yet to experience that luxury the story leaves you with the same feeling you get when eating a sandwich at the beach. There are few grains of sand stuck in the bread somehow and the whole sandwich is ruined. A lot like mince you can quite happily gobble up Robin Hood without thinking too much but if you were expecting Gladiator, you'll be dialing Dominos for something tastier. Right I'm gonna stop now, because If I think about that film anymore I will never be happy again.


I think I might go and buy some chicken today, then watch Gladiator




*ROBIN HOOD ROBIN HOOD RIDING THROUGH THE GLEN, ROBIN HOOD ROBIN HOOD, WITH HIS MERRY MEN, HE TAKES FROM THE RICH, HE GIVES TO THE POOR... and so on.