Saw a preview for this last night, and it was really good. It's a funny film, in both senses of the word. It is frequently hilarious, often to the degree that the audience missed large chunks of dialogue due to their own laughter. But it's also a very strange film, and often feels like watching a series of homages to different films rather than a film complete unto itself. The film certainly makes no bones about the fact that it both parodies and pays respect to the many films it draws from, but by attempting to give nods to multiple genres, they end up producing several extremely jarring shifts in tone that often feel quite discordant. The film it will be compared to most is Wright and Pegg's previous collaboration, the excellent Shaun of the Dead. That film was also a parody, but by limiting it to one genre it kept a consistent tone, and Shaun's character arc had a clear direction and conclusion. This meant the film was satisfying on its own terms, rather than simply nodding to others. Hot Fuzz begins with a character arc for Pegg's lead Angel, a Police officer so dedicated to his job that it is destroying both his relationships and his career prospects when he is reassigned to the idyllic but strangely creepy village of Sandford. It starts off oddly reminiscent of The League of Gentlemen (itself a parody of The Wicker Man), then turns into Scream (itself a parody of the slasher genre), then finally ends up being quite unashamedly Bad Boys II (which isn't a parody but may as well be), but as it moves through each genre, any thought of characterization or indeed plot progression is lost in a wash of blood and bullets. It may have more laughs per minute than Shaun, but as a film it has more in common with Airplane, or more likely Kill Bill (in that it?s a series of homages rather than an actual narrative film)- and may be forgotten just as quickly as the latter was. However if you're looking for a laugh-out-loud cinema experience, this comes highly recommended, with the proviso that it might not be for you if you don't find shotgun-toting grannies getting kicked in the face a giggle- although really, who doesn't find that funny?

[Incidentally, Jeremy Clarkson was at the screening as well, so I went up and said hello. I wish I'd been ballsy enough to say: "I'm not a fan of the things you say, but sometimes I like the way you say them." but I wasn't.]

++ATTENTION PUNY HUMANS++

++THE HUMAN KNOWN AS DANZOR HAS BEEN DESTROYED AND REPLACED WITH THE ROBOT KNOWN AS THE DESTRUCTOR++

++YOUR INFERIOR HUMAN BEATS HAVE BEEN REPLACED WITH THE SUPERIOR BEATS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE++

++DOWNLOAD NEW TRACKS DIRECTLY INTO YOUR SUBCORTEXT FOR MAXIMUM SIMULATED ENJOYMENT++

Spent a very enjoyable and productive two days in the studio this weekend, making-up and recording songs on the fly, as is the Grok way. We ended up recording 31 songs, which Daryl the studio guy said was a record for the studio 'by a fair bit'. Each song about about 8-12 minutes long, so we must have recorded at least four hours of music. However this was just the first and probably easiest step in a very long process. Just listening to all the songs and deciding which ones we do and do not like will take a fair while, then we have to mix the track, re-record the vocals, and in many cases re-cut the songs so they are not all insanely long. Still, that part of the process should be fun as well, and you can all rest assured that, somewhere down the line, a Grok album awaits you.

I do regret writing a blog about the weather, but seriously, the wind outside is nuts. My work is normally situated in a sort of Euston-Road wind-tunnel anyway, even on a very calm day if you walk over to the Pret for some sushi you get an annoying gust of grit into your eyes. But today, when apparently the wind is knocking lorries over on the M6, it's a whole `nother deal. The building I work in is made primarily from glass, and has a secondary outer shell of glass outside it, a sort of atrium deal. The wind is blowing so strongly that this outer-layer is actually rippling disturbingly. Some moron decided to open one of the doors (to 'experience the power', no doubt), and the venetian blind was torn out of the building and is now smashing about loudly, a tangled wreck, on the outside of the building- no-one can figure out how to get it back in.

One of the glass doors in the lobby was caught by the wind and swung back on its hinges, shattering both itself and the glass wall it rammed into- the lobby is now howling with wind, little shards of glass chasing themselves around the floor. I went and stood in the courtyard between our building and the Pret. Normally the wind tunnel effect annoys me, but it was so powerful today that it was just fun to get blown around. Most people hurried by, struggling against the wind, but there were a few others like me, huge grins on their faces, just letting themselves be pushed about. Above us, a piece of paper was dancing along the rippling glass, getting pushed this way and that above us, and I wished the wind would pick me up and dance me along the glass, as well. It'd be scary, but well worth it.

Yes! A new show! Just what you've been waiting for, I'm sure. Anyway it's a fun kinda show, a bit long in the making, but what can I say? There's just no good music around. No, wait, yes there is...it's in here! In this show, which you can download! Right now! In fact, it's already downloading into your iTunes! What do you mean you don't use iTunes? What do you use, Windows Media Player? That's shit! Look, it's called podcasting cause you do it on your iPod. It's the market leader because it's the best. And iTunes is great, too, because it's downloading my show, right now. What do you mean, you don't have iTunes? And so on and so forth.