Fabulous Penetrators/Luxury Condo, Sweeney Todd & Human Mind Capacity

PARSLEY'S COMMLOCK

Concert Review : Fabulous Penetrators/Luxury Condo, Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes 16/08/08
Looking for a decent night out with my friend Paul, we were drawn to my friend Jim Bishop's gig with lounge supremos Luxury Condo at this multi-faceted venue.

We walked in past the mini cinema, and big table areas and bumped into Jim and the guys in the pleasant outdoor area, ostensibly for smokers. Jim showed us around the venue, which although I'd been to before I hadn't fully appreciated.

There are glass-walled karaoke rooms that are available for hire, and a selection of food that was right up my alley in an Ed's Diner way, although we arrived too late to sample it. It seems like the place gets used for a lot of family birthdays and hen nights.

Luxury Condo performed a highly accomplished and enjoyable set. When they hit the stage they were seated in some delicious new chairs that I was hoping were regular new stage props, but they turned out to be from the bar of the venue. Afterwards Jim advised us that all of the venue's furniture is hand picked for its style.

The Fabulous Penetrators had a high energy Wilko Johnson vibe. They powered through a very enjoyable set. Somewhere in the middle the fire alarms went off. Chaos ensued until someone spotted that the sprinklers had gone off over one of the bowling lanes. Apparently an over exuberant bowler had managed to hit them with his attempt at bowling. The gig went on, but the bowling was rained off.

The apres-gig vibe was ok, but the music was nothing I knew so I left feeling slightly frustrated, as I'd been up for a dance. All-in-all though, the Bowling Lanes offers lots of different things to make an enjoyable evening.

Film Review : Sweeney Todd
Caught up with this award winning film on its DVD release. Johnny Depp stars as David Bowie...er, no, sorry, Sweeney Todd nee Benjamin Barker. I thought Sweeney Todd just killed people to make into meat pies, but much more is explained in this film, which is bursting with powerful images typical of its director Tim Burton.

Before I get too carried away, don't let me forget to mention that it's a musical. Dick van Dyke left a lasting impression of an American's take on an English accent (as schooled, so we're told, by Julie Andrews) in the musical 'Mary Poppins'. Here Johnny Depp has obviously been advised that historical characters in London folklore sounded like David Bowie when they sang. It's an entertaining interpretation that is well delivered.

After being wrongly convicted of a crime he didn't commit, Barker returns to the disgusting London to carry out his revenge. Yes it was as true then as it is now. Alan Rickman's magistrate Judge Turpin can have boys hanged for stealing and Barker wrongly deported. Likewise today the power of the City can still be used to dish out fixed penalty notices to motorists for parking offences that have been engineered into the parking regime for the purposes of legally mugging the law-abiding. Meanwhile the real villains go unpunished or are part of the establishment that is supposed to uphold the law.

So Sweeney Todd gets his revenge by killing those he can get away with killing, while trying to lead up to the men that have wronged him. To achieve this end he takes to slitting the throats of those that have come to him for a shave, and this becomes a regular part of his working life, and is conveyed in graphic detail in the film. I cannot say if the decapitation shown is realistic, but certainly it didn't lose its shock value with me, even when it had occurred several times.

Overall Review : thumbs up. Disgusting powerful images of decapitation and betrayal powerfully convey a nightmare world of imagination.

Health Review : The Capacity of the Human Mind
My aunt is suffering from memory issues with the onset of old age. I met an old friend who reminded me of adventures from years ago that I'd completely forgotten.

It suddenly occurred to me that it should be possible to come up with an estimate for the capacity of the human brain, based on testing and with an eye to the amount of gigabytes that computers contain these days. In such a way it should be feasible to work out how many things it is possible to retain and manipulate and to focus education on the items that retain their usefulness rather than the frivolous and esoteric.

In such ways it might be a better protection for short-term memory loss in old age, to have those skills which you were more certain to need. I would nominate a serenity and resourcefulness that is not dependent on the dubious skill of memory. I've been forgetting petty details for years and I find the personal organiser into which I'm typing a more than adequate alternative to a memory the size of a football pitch.

parsley@gardenrecords.com [www.gardenrecords.com]