Christian Bale and My top 10 public losses of temper!

Christian Bale, calm mild mannered star of such amazing films such as ‘Batman: The Dark Knight’ and ‘American Psycho’ has lost it.

YouTube here

And who can blame him?  Well, I guess he could look here.

Oh well.

Actors are pretty melodramatic individuals, it doesn’t take much for them to go off on one.  But there are so many ‘temper’ moments on YouTube that I can’t help putting a few links up here.

I have to say that in my top ten of temper tantrums would look something like this.

10. Phil Hellmuth loses it on Full Tilt Poker.

Phil Hellmuth is one of the best professional hold ‘em poker players around.  He’s won more bracelets then pretty much anybody, has written oodles of books and has a degree of notoriety around poker tables throughout the world.  Unforgivably dubbed the ‘poker brat’ it’s clear that he’s not lost any of that fire!

9. William F Buckley v. Gore Vidal

This was a classic clash of political theology at the 1968 democratic convention in Chicago.  It all sparked off after Vidal calls Buckley a ‘crypto-nazi’ and so starts years of animosity between these respected political commentators.  Although I could happily go in to the whole subject, that’d be a digression like never before.  Instead all I will say is that the two were not exactly harmonious for decades after this altercation.  Although no fists fly, this clip sums up the divisive and emotive nature that took hold of the population at the time of the Vietnam War.

8. Tyra banks loses it on Americas Top Model

I didn’t really understand why Tyra Banks went off on one, she reminds me a very angry yorkshire terrier, what with the hair and the jaws.
I would love to see Lisa thingy do this on the UK version.  Although it is really comedy, she does have a point.
Plus she does the wobbly side to side head thing which cracks me up.

7. Nikki Grahame, do I say anymore?

Not being the worlds biggest BB fan, I can just about recall this amazing entity as being possibly the stroppiest person I have ever watched.  I start to wonder if it was all an act?  Was it a complex device of psychological mind alteration, designed to make the public apathetic to screaming children, result being that we would be more subservient and deferrant in our ways when we grew up, so resulting in ideal conditions for aliens to take over the world?  Or was she just a spoilt shreaking weirdo? You decide.

6. Big Brother 2004 fight

I remember this, it was just, well… comedy.  There have been some better fights since but this was the first really serious one where they had to call the police and have investigations and stuff.  Oh it was amazing, this wasn’t as bad as a later fight where Emma and another one burst out of a cake.  It was brilliant, pure comedy.
I’m not sure what to say about this as it is simply undescribable, there is no reason behind it, just the pure carnal animal growling.  Irrational comedy gold.

5. Charles (Chuck, Hank) Bukowski loses his temper at his fiancee

These films were part of a cult documentary by Barbet Schroeder, a French film maker, who collated a series of short interviews with the Los Angeles based writer in 1989.
Before you judge Bukowski, bear in mind that he was an amazing writer who wrote prolific amounts of material.  His poetry was crude but sentimental, his writings about  Los Angeles and the people around him inspired artists and writers all over the world.  Also read this and visit this site.  I defend him as a writer, but not his actions here. You can’t justify what he does here.
I have included the two whole tapes, but there are shorter versions available.

4. Bill O’Reilly goes ever so psycho over Sting.

This is a classic as the legendary Fox anchorman just loses it in spectacular fashion over a malfunctioning autocue.   The man is a bit of a right wing nut, so bear that in mind.

3. John Sweeney loses it on BBC Panorama: Scientology and me.

How do you crack a highly respected BBC journalist?  You harass him and stalk the crew whilst they are trying to make a documentary.  But let this be a lesson to anyone that tries to make a documentary about scientology, you will have a tough time.
Credit for the crew for trying to do this, but as the power of scientology has demonstrated, they have the resources to make life very difficult for anyone that tries to ‘expose’ them.  And here is the result.  John Sweeney famously lost it after the press officer or someone similiar picks an argument.  I am not going to comment because both sides are saying different things, and I wasn’t there.  Just goes to show how dangerous the camera is.

2. Daffy Duck loses it on set

This is an amazing spoof.  But it only goes to show that actors can be incredibly melodramatic, tempremental and incredibly passionate about their craft so God help anyone that fucks it up.

1. Don’t throw paperclips at your co workers!

My all time favourite public meltdown has to be this one.  Don’t know where it’s from, who they are and a scant idea about what was happening, but it’s a good idea not to throw anything..at anyone!

There are others out there too such as this

Jerry Seinfeld was cancelled…or was he?

Rosie O’Donnell in a cat fight…? Never.

Moving to my own server / Shameless

I am going to start this post off with a recommendation.  www.freehostia.com is a great little hosting service that lets you create your own website and has an easy-peesy php script installation tool for installing those much loved applications such as WordPress.  Even better, you can get it for free with a not too stingy level of bandwidth per month and a good level of support.

Recommendation over.  I have decided, wise or not I am not sure, to try and get this blog off the WordPress servers and on to my ‘own’ server.  It’d be even better if I had my own server hidden under the stairs or something but alas I am not that technically capable and Laura would have triplets if I started hoiking in bits of PC and server and started trying to attach it to the wall.

So far the experiment has gone OK, but after trying to export all of the posts, only half of them are actually appearing.  In fact only 2007 appears at the moment.  So, in between trying to play Uplink, writing poetry and doing domestic type things this evening, I might get around to continuing my forays in to this wild and uncharted territory.

My creative juices have dried up quite badly.  Everytime I try and sit down and write something poetic, I just clam up.  It’s almost a strange case of stage fright, I guess it’s ‘pen fright’ or ‘keyboard fright’.  Big happiness at seeing the new series of Shameless start yesterday.  E4 sneak peak showed the next one straight afterwards so I have seen next weeks too.  Weird how they do that, must improve ratings.  I know that Channel 4 has been losing money on E4 and More4 for quite some time now (source: Can’t remember) so I expect they’re trying to scrape back revenue.

David Threlfall was fantastic as Frank again, and it looks like he’s directing it too.  Big highlight was his monologue when Debbies jilted policeman husband was holding a gun to him.
I love the way the whole concept and programme has evolved from the first series, the character development is really good.  It is also impressive that they have managed to integrate two new families in to the plot seamlessly, which I guess reflects real life in a way.

As a reflection on real life, is Shameless true to the characters they are depicting?  Some reckon so, others not so. But as an entity in it’s own right it is a modern day classic.

Spend Spend Spend…your way out of the recession?

I have been avoiding writing about this, as there are already enough bloggers having their two cents about this.  The bloggers worth reading are those who are actually economists such as Prof. Greg Mankiw or Tim Harford’s blog hosted by the FT. Why do I say that?, beecause I could gurantee you that most people don’t understand the reasons behind the recession, and those that do are only half right or they have misunderstood it.  If you want a good digestable introduction as to why we are in the pickle we are, then head to the BBC’s explanation showing what helped start off the recession and a really good timeline which takes us up to date and gives a blow by blow account of what really brought us our economic knees.  Now you should be in a better position to actually make sense of all the financial jargon that is floating about at the moment. 

I was listening on the radio to a debate between the Lib Dem shadow chancellor, Lord Howe who was the chancellor during the 1981 recession and a few other knowlegable types, as I came back this morning from a really nice breakfast in Sainsburys after a vigourous food shop.  The Lib Dems are talking about ‘if we were in this position I would do…’ this and that, and one of them was to put together a ‘Fiscal Stimulation’ package.  The great thing about the Lib Dems is that they can get away with some pretty radical thoughts normally, and although I was half expecting them to say that if it had been up to them they would have made everyone eat mud and cultivate ring worm in their guts, to sell to eastern asian countries as a delicacy or some other slightly half-brained rhetoric, they actually said something serious.  OK I am sorry that was uncalled for, but seriously, Lloyd-George was the last liberal prime minister that was 1918-1922.  Are they ever going to get the hint?…

I digress, again.

The argument now seems to rage between two distinct sides, Keynesian economics or the opposite to that which I guess would be a total laissez-faire policy (Government spending, the ’spend and borrow’ approach or ’sit back and do nothing’, laissez-faire meaning minimal government intervention).  The Lib Dems and Labour seem to find common ground with a Keynesian approach by throwing money at the situation and hoping that this will kick start some sort of economic stimulation.  The Tories on the other hand believe that rather then pump money in to the system but instead cut taxes which will give people more money in their pocket for them to then spend.

Although I see myself as a liberal minded sort of guy, I am inclined to agree with the Tories but one must amalgamate this with a Keynesian approach to personal finance.  Easier said then done, I know, but ultimately we must not cut our spending by anymore then we have already done.
It is up to us to keep spending our money, if not large sums (I doubt many people have large sums anymore) then little and often.  It is up to our skill at budgeting our own money and managing our personal debts, that will keep the economy going in my opinion.  And here is where it starts.

The way to look at it is this.  Money we spend in our pockets goes circulates and will eventually end up in a bank.  My shopping this morning cost a little over £40 which will keep us going for about a week.  If you look at the profit path of that figure it goes to many different places.  First off it goes to Sainsburys who then put it in a bank, it then goes off to the producers who then put it in their banks and then the assistant who served me, who’ll then put it in her bank and so on and so on.  By spending less on small things, we only serve to shrink the economy which means our recession deepens.
So long as the banks have more money, they will then feel more confident in lending and as a result the economy will start to expand and the recession will end.

In my opinion, Northern Rock should not have been given money through the top end so to speak, but this should have been given to each customer as a savings account for them to either spend it or either save it with a lucrative rate of interest with a guranteed return in the first year.  Then likewise for the other banks, everyone should have been given lump sum which would have then helped stimulate the economy from the bottom up.
So, will we get out of the recession?  The quicker politicians realise that throwing money at things doesn’t work, the sooner we will sort ourselves out.  Alistair Darling was rubbing his hands with glee when he announced this week he’d be giving a pre-budget speech which would be a further extension to the misery that we are already experiencing.  I expect he has trimmed his eyebrows especially for the occasion.

I can imagine most of us are ‘feeling the squeeze’ or ‘digging deep’ or any other sort of over used cliche to avoid actually saying, ‘we are all poor’ without saying it.  So here are a few good links to personal finance websites.  The most important thing is this, do not bury your head and ignore it, because that will make it alot worse.  If you have problems then please for the love of everything that is good in the world, talk to someone about it.
If things go from bad to worse to f*£$ing awful then talk to Payplan.  Unison (my Union with which I am a Health and Safety Rep) Welfare representatives recommend this as they are free and they’re not out to make profit as they are funded from donations from the credit industry.  Where you might not have got to that stage yet you can find great money saving tips from the GetRichSlowly blog, also have a look at this post from SitePoint about how to actually make money on the internet (doesn’t involve pyramid schemes, these are legitamate ways of making extra cash).  A good way of analysing your spending and is maybe joining a money management website.  There are many out there, but beware a lot of them are based in the US so they’ll be bias towards US dollars etc.  However, a good website to look at is Wesabe as it shows in a visual graph your spending habits and can show you exactly what is coming out and going in.  Don’t forget to Google ‘Money Saving Tips as well.

Monday madness makes me morbidly merry

Today is Monday, the beginning of a new half to the term and the countdown to December 15th  well underway.  If you have read this and got a phone call about RSVP’s then that is because you didn’t send a card back, as we are trying to get everyone to send a card so we can collect them together as a sort of memory, archived thing.
Feeling good after a rested nights sleep and nice breakfast, focused and enthusiastic.  I love it when I feel this way as things get done and I do not dwell on anything.
I am not feeling as ‘mortal’ as I have been, not sure if this is a good thing or not? But I feel energised and more alive then I was 6 months ago.  Life is starting to continue.

I haven’t really thought about anything intellectual recently, I have started to have excellent ideas for poetry and if I get the chance I will whip up some found poetry! (poetry constructed from existing texts), it’s not creative laziness just an added avenue of expression.  In fact, it can be argued to be more intensive then sitting at a keyboard and just expressing yourself, keep an eye on Cheesegreen for the results.

Photography has taken a back seat for the minute, the light is getting worse, my time and motivation is becoming shorter and smaller but I am sure it’ll fire back up soon enough. 

How to learn faster, deeper and quicker

http://oedb.org/library/college-basics/hacking-knowledge  Feast your eyes on this doozy.  Really this is one for zerotwozero but it falls just outside of its remit, so I am going to present it here as a beacon of godly knowledge.  This gives you inspirational and interesting ways to improve your ability to learn faster and increase retention of knowledge.