Just got back from a showing of “Sherlock Holmes” (which was rather good, by the way) at Cambridge Cineworld. The talking point of the evening, however, was not the main movie, but a trailer shown beforehand for a quite dreadful-looking movie called “The Sitter”. The problem was that the trailer was in no way suitable for an audience containing 12 year olds, with more use of bad language in two minutes than would be allowed in an entire 12A movie, and some sexual references which were uncomfortable even for the adults in the audience. Now, if people want to make and watch movies like that, then fine, but the (presumably mistaken) showing of this trailer demonstrated why the cinema multiplex business is slowly killing itself. Mark Kermode would nod his head knowingly.

On heading out from the showing, the young manager was clearly waiting for us all, accompanied by our complaints. It turned out that he’d been besieged by angry cinemagoers all day, and could only offer the defence that “the computer says it’s a 12A trailer for a 12A film”. When we pointed out that “The Sitter” was actually a 15 movie, and showed him the BBFC website, he resorted to saying that “the computer says otherwise”. When we asked if he’d watched it, he said that he had (unsurprisingly, given the complaints he’d been getting), and we asked if he agreed that it was unsuitable. At this point, while not saying yes, he admitted: “We’re not able to stop the trailers even if we wanted to, they come direct from a satellite”. So whatever was being streamed to his screens, the human being in charge was unable to do anything about it, regardless of the distress – and at our showing, anger – being caused. It makes you weep.

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

2. Attack the Block

3. Senna

4. Source Code

5. One Day

6. The Adjustment Bureau

7. Thor

8. Paul

9. Cave of Forgotten Dreams

10. The Kings Speech

Some of the band members – most notably front man Damian Darlington – have previously appeared in the “Australian” lineup, and long-time fans have every excuse for finding it all a bit confusing. But let’s not get hung up about this. These are tribute bands we’re talking about. And as with all tribute bands, the only thing which matters is: do they deliver a suitably authentic experience, now that we’ll never again see the band they’re paying tribute to live in concert?

Of course they do. What did you expect? The Australian Pink Floyd Show (and now Brit Floyd too) have always take the tribute act one giant step further by recreating the unique Pink Floyd stage show, with its memorable visuals. Couple that with a greatest-hits set list that you wouldn’t get from the real band even if they were touring/speaking/alive, and it’s a corkingly good night out for fans.

No, it’s not Dave Gilmour himself studiously picking out those guitar solos, or Roger Waters spitting out those grumpy lyrics (actually it looked more like Nick Clegg and Keith Allen up front). But we don’t come for the original artists; we come for an evening a bit like one with Pink Floyd, and we get it. The musicianship and vocal stylings are extraordinarily good, and more than adequate facsimiles for all but the real musos. In fact – as with most tribute bands – you get something closer to the original album versions than you probably would with the real band, who might well decide to wander off-piste into “live versions”, for better or for worse.

People come to Cambridge Corn Exchange from further afield than normal regional venues, because downstairs is usually standing, exactly as a rock gig should be. So it was a real disappointment when those who’d bought standing tickets were contacted before the gig to be told that “the promoter had decided” it would be seating throughout, and here were replacement seated tickets. I don’t know how many people sent them back, as was offered, but the venue was advertising the event heavily right up to the day, and it wasn’t quite full. Still, they did give us seats right down the front, which was an interesting experience.

There weren’t too many surprises in the set, from the opening “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” through to the “Run Like Hell” encore. We were given a handful of songs from every album from “Meddle” onwards (except the quietly-forgotten “Final Cut”) and I think the only song I’d not heard a tribute Floyd play before was “Pigs”, a relatively mediocre song which came over much better than I expected, once it got going, at least. Not a patch on “Sheep” though, which occupied the same pre-interval slot when I saw them once before, but which – sadly – didn’t get an airing tonight. “Echoes” was terrific, marred only by a stream of people coming back in late from the bar and finishing their conversations, and “Comfortably Numb” was – as ever – spectacular.

So the big question is probably “are Brit Floyd as good as The Australian Pink Floyd Show?” and on this showing, I’d have to say yes. Perhaps the only thing they need to work on is their stage presence and personality: “TAPFS” always seemed to be enjoying themselves, and even had a decent bit of banter between the songs. Brit Floyd were a lot more stiff, and need to chill out. People want great musicianship from the band, but they don’t want the whole thing to be too serious.

The Unthanks performing Tom Waits’ No One Knows I’m Gone, Junction 2, Cambridge, 2 April 2011

Not! The Nine O’Clock News (1980)

Not The Royal Wedding (1981)

Not The General Election (1983)

Bachelor Boys – The Young Ones Book (1984)

How To Be A Complete Bastard (1986)

The Lavishly Tooled Smith & Jones Instant Coffee Table (1986)

Janet Lives With Mel And Griff (1988)

Went to see Spamalot! in Cambridge last week. Very good for a touring production, if perhaps not quite up to the standards set by the considerably higher-budget performances I’d seen in the West End and, ahem, Las Vegas. Anyway, here’s my favourite bit of dialogue. Very Pythonesque. The cast recording CD is great, but doesn’t have any of the dialogue, so we’ll have to hope for a Spamalot! DVD one day if we’re to ever re-live the performance.

Scene: on the back of the stage – a castle. In the front – a man, Dennis, with very dirty clothes, kneeling over the ground, and we can’t see his face. King Arthur and Patsy are riding toward him.

Arthur: Old woman…

Dennis Galahad (revealing his face): Man!

Arthur: Man, sorry. (Point towards the castle) What knight lives at that castle over there?

Dennis Galahad: I’m twenty seven.

Arthur: What?

Dennis Galahad: I’m not old!

Arthur: Well, I can’t just call you ‘man’.

Dennis (angrily): Well, you could say ‘Dennis’!

Arthur: I didn’t know you are called Dennis.

Dennis: Well you didn’t bother to find out, did you?

Arthur: Look, I’m sorry about the old woman thing, but really from behind you looked…

Dennis: What I’m objecting to is you automatically treating me like an inferior.

Arthur: Well I AM king.

Dennis: Oh, king, eh? Very nice. And did you get that? By exploiting the workers! By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the social and economic differences in our society! If there’s EVER going to be any progress…

Dennis’s mother (enters the stage and coming toward him): Dennis, there’s a lot of good mud over there. (Notices Arthur and Patsy) Oh, how do you do?

Arthur: How do you do, good lady?

(Dennis’s mother stops, noticing he is a good looking King)

Dennis’s mother: Oh, how do you do? I’m Mrs Galahad, widowed mother of Dennis. (Walks towards Arthur) Now dropped dead last Tuesday, which does leaved me sadly available.

Arthur: I’m Arthur, king of the Britons.

Dennis’s mother: King of the who?

Arthur: The Britons.

Dennis’s mother: Who are the Britons?

Arthur: Well, we all are. We’re all Britons and I am your king.

Dennis’s mother: I didn’t know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective.

Dennis: You’re fooling yourself. We’re living in a dictatorship, A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes…

Dennis’s mother: There you are, bringing class into it again…

Dennis: That’s what it’s all about. If only…

Arthur: Please, please good people. I am in haste. Who is your lord?

Dennis’s mother: We don’t have a lord.

Dennis: We’re an anarcho-syndicalist commune, we take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week.

Arthur: Yes.

Dennis: But all the decisions of that officer…

Arthur: Yes, I see.

Dennis: …must be approved at a bi-weekly meeting by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs…

Arthur: Be quiet!

Dennis: …but a two-thirds majority …

Arthur: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!

Dennis’s mother: Order, eh? Who does he think he is?

Arthur: I am your king!

Dennis’s mother: Well, I didn’t vote for you.

Arthur: You don’t vote for kings.

Dennis’s mother: Well, so how did you become a king, then?

Arthur: Well, I’ll tell you. (Music starts) One day, as I was riding forth from Camelot, I saw a lady in the lake…

Dennis: Dead? (The music stops)

Arthur: No, not dead. She was the lady of the lake! She lives in the lake.

Dennis: What, in the water?

Arthur: Yes.

(Dennis nods to his mother, pointing at Arthur and then making a sign with his hand which means he thinks Arthur is being drinking)

Arthur (The music continues): She appeared to me, out of the bosom of the water, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur, to signify by Divine Providence… (He takes out his sword and rises it high) that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur!

Patsy: Excalibur!

Background singing voice: Excalibur!
(The music stops, Arthur returns the sword)

Arthur: And that’s why I’m your king.

Dennis (Rises and walking toward Arthur): Listen, strange women lying in ponds, distributing swords is no basis of a system of government! Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

Arthur: It’s not an ordinary sword. How many swords do you know, that have their own names?

(Dennis stares at him)
Dennis: You can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just ’cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!

Arthur: Be quiet!

Dennis: If I said I was an Emperor because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, people would put me away!

Arthur: You think I would make that up?

Dennis: Soggy old blondes with their backs lying in ponds…

Arthur: Since you don’t believe me, if I prove to you that the lady of the lake exists, will you join my army and enlist as a knight?

Dennis: Oh, sure, if she exists I’ll join any bloody army. For the tooth fairy I’ll join the navy.

Arthur: Very well, watch this. (music starts as he speaks) Oh, lady of the lake, please reveal to this doubting Thomas…

Dennis: Dennis! (His mother nods)

Arthur: Please reveal to this doubting Dennis that you are real.

(Behind disbelieving Dennis and his mother the lake start to light in blue. Dennis doesn’t notice it but his mother does. Then a hole is being opened and out coming the lady of the lake, surrounded by her laker girls. Dennis notices her and running to the side of the stage)

Dennis (scared): Oh! Blimey!

The Fake Album Art idea has been around in its current form for at least a couple of years now, but it never ceases to amuse, and it’s been enjoying a revival on Facebook recently, so the young people tell me. Anyway, I couldn’t start work today without having a go. I’d buy this, wouldn’t you? It’s Junctional Epidermolysis Bullosa Gravis’ tenth album in eighteen years, and although it’s a long way from the Glastonbury-headlining early years, Factors To A Happy Marriage deserves more widespread recognition than it’s likely to get in 2011. The single 74-minute instrumental chronicles Junctional’s stormy five-year relationship with his (now ex-) wife, the poet Joanna Barnsley, and will, I suspect, move many long-term fans to tears.

To make your own Fake Album, go to “explore the last seven days” on Flickr and copy the third image. Go to “Random Quotations” and copy the last four or five words of the very last quote of the page as your album title. Finally, go to a random Wikipedia article to get the name of your band.

1. Apple iPad

Inevitably, product of the year, and it’ll probably be up there in my products of the decade in 2019. Hard to believe it was just a rumour this time last year.

2. Virgin Media 50Mb broadband

Well, the performance varies over the course of the day, and it ain’t cheap, but it’s nice to still be at the bleeding edge of technology.

Nice performance in the morning, on the day it was installed

Still nothing like as good in the evening though, ten months later

3. Apple iPhone 4

Growing on me. The new features, which are technically impressive, are not life-altering like the original iPhone was. But they might become so, as apps make them indispensable. For example, I don’t really have much use for a video camera. But FaceTime calls to relatives overseas? Now you’re talking. The iPhone 3G was nicer to hold in the hand though.

4. Panasonic SD-257 Breadmaker

Incremental upgrade on the best-selling SD-255, but a great example of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Others should watch and learn.

5. Canon Ixus 210 digital camera

Bought one of these for Mrs R, who wanted a modern, easy-to-use digital camera which would fit in a handbag. Oh, and it had to be pink. It’s everything you’d expect from a Canon …lovely. And it even has a (huge) touchscreen, which is hardly essential, but fun.

1. Wonders of The Solar System Spoof

NSFW. This was one of the cleverest revoiced videos of the year, and the guy did a superb impression of Brian Cox. “What makes clouds? Volcanoes. They spill out ****ing loads of clouds. Every day they produce hundreds of thousands. Twice the size of a football pitch. That’s on Mars”.

2. Hate E-mails with Richard Dawkins

NSFW. This must be the year that Professors made the best videos. Richard Dawkins sits by the fire and reads out some of the hate mail he gets. Just priceless. “Haha you ****ing dumbass! I hope you get hit by a church van tonight!”

3. Newport State Of Mind

Bloody brilliant. Clueless songwriters with no sense of humour (not Jay-Z or Alicia Keys’ record company, as commonly thought) have been chasing down copies and getting them removed, but I hope the one above is still online. “Twinned with Guanxi Province in China, there’s no province finer…”

4. Northampton – The story behind the song

Uploaded in 2007, and actually a clip from Anglia TV from 1980, but I laughed about it for weeks in 2010. “Punk’s all the rage at the moment, then of course there are the old favourites like Cliff Richard. He’s suddenly popular again”.

5. I’m Just A Glamour Girl by Chenille Steele

NSFW yet again. “I’m from Saffron Walden, I’m mates with Jordan, I’ve done things you ain’t never seen done!”

1. Twitter

I may have been Tweeting for a couple of years or more, but this was the year I spent glued to it. I can’t watch live events on TV now without following them on Twitter too.

2. GMail

My life is now on this. How can anybody live without years’ worth of email instantly searchable? I’d find it hard to use (and to juggle so many accounts) without Mailplane though.

3. b3ta

Every Friday afternoon, brightens up my life without fail.

4. LogMeIn

It’s got me out of some right old pickles, I can tell you. Works perfectly from hotel foyers on holiday. Don’t tell the wife.

5. Ocado

Yay, you order it and it comes. Doesn’t even cost anything for delivery if you pay £3.99 a month extra. Kudos too for the milkman’s commendable version, milkandmore.

6. National Rail Journey Planner

New version up this year solves any irritations with the old one. Good work, fellas.

7. Texaco Fantasy Football

It’s about the Championship! It’s free! It works! I’m pretty rubbish at it!

8. Statto.com

I don’t think I need any other website, seriously.

9. Dropbox

Just getting into this. It’ll need some training. But it couldn’t work more perfectly.