jgmcquarrie

Coming New Year 2022… We’re Number 11

… the songs that didn’t quite crack the Top Ten, running from 1965 – 2005

Emily Berry, Stranger, Baby

Can Emily Berry’s second collection of poems live up to the impossibly-high standard of her first? Oh yes.

What’s The Book? Stranger, Baby by Emily Berry

What’s It All About, JG? It’s the follow-up to Berry’s first volume, Dear Boy (reviewed here). Published in 2017, Stranger, Baby is a deeply personal, lonely and melancholic piece that reflects on the death of the author’s mother and how she comes to terms with it – or indeed if she can and has. While Berry’s first collection covered a wide range of different types of relationship – from the personal to the clinical, from the human to the inanimate – the focus in Stranger, Baby is much tighter and, perhaps, even fixated as Berry uses poetry as a medium for dealing the loss of such a pivotal figure in her life. That it is a deeply affecting piece pretty much goes without saying, but – as is often the hallmark of writing this good – it can be hard to explain just how powerful the work is when not actually sitting down and reading it.

Billy Connolly, Windswept And Interesting: My Autobiography

Billy Connolly puts pen to paper to give up his autobiography, but will the writing be as windswept and interesting as the man himself?

What’s The Book? Windswept And Interesting: My Autobiography by Billy Connolly

What’s It All About, JG? It’s an autobiography, so I have a feeling you can probably figure it out. Anyway, as you would expect, it’s a rambling amble through the life of Scotland’s best-loved comedian, one Sir William Connolly, told partly through anecdotes and partly through sketches and stories (and some very tall tales) from various live performances. It covers Billy’s life up until basically now – even the Pandemic gets a mention – and gives the former welder, folk musician and generally windswept and interesting person the chance to look back over a life of unexpected yet greatly embraced success.

Star Trek: Insurrection

The battle for paradise has begun, though the battle to stay awake is rather harder to win…

First Contact gave us some faith that a good TNG movie was actually possible. So would the third film follow that cue or fall back into the lazy pattern of Generations. Or maybe find something new to do?

Pre-Existing Prejudices: The Boring One.

What’s It All About, JG? The Enterprise is in the Briar Patch (cute) where some planet is being spied on for allegedly anthropological reasons and …. oh pardon me, my eyes feel heavy. Anyway, Data malfunctions, there’s… oh my, is it terribly warm in here? Picard beams down to meet… um… *yawns, stretches, nods off*

Er, something, something face-stretching, same race, credits. That’s about it, right?

Star Trek: First Contact

For the second TNG movie outing we get the Borg – is resistance useless?

After the disappointing dud of Generations, we have this, an attempt at getting the TNG movies back on track by reuniting them with their most implacable foe – ~~Rick Berman~~ The Borg. But will it be enough to turn things around?

Pre-Existing Prejudices: Well, it’s got the Borg in them – TNG’s most successful enemy, so that’s something. And James Cromwell is here, and I like James Cromwell too because… well, he’s James Cromwell. This has, I know, the reputation as the best of the TNG movies – a bar so low it’s subterranean – and of course, it’s the one that tends to stick in the minds of non-fans. Alice Krige being assembled in front of your very eyes will tend to do that.

Beatles Stuffology Podcast – Episode 5: Chains

Click Here To Listen

This week JG and Andrew find themselves in Chains as another song on Please Please Me gets the Stuffology treatment. Is is any better or worse than the last track? Why was it so popular at the time? And how does George get on?

eMail: beatlesstuffology@gmail.com

Twitter: @beatles_ology

Star Trek – Generations

Two Captains, One Movie, No Point

Now that the original crew have sailed off into the sunset with an unambiguously perfect finale for them, we have this, a weird attempt at both a coda for the TOS crew and the first of four attempts to bring the TNG crew to the fore. But can they do it?

Pre-Existing Prejudices: I saw this at the Odeon, Leicester Square in London on the very first week of its release. “All Good Things…” had not long passed and it was terrific, and being in the position to see this at one of the world’s premier cinemas combined with the warm afterglow of the TV series set me up to be very receptive towards this, and I remember thoroughly enjoying it when it was released. I’ve seen it a few times since and sadly it seems that time makes fools of us all, and it would be a vast understatement to say that my opinion of it has plummeted.

Beatles Stuffology Podcast: Episode 4 – Anna (Go To Him)

Click Here To Listen

Shuffling right along through Please Please Me we come to this, the first cover. How do the Beatles manage with material not of their own making? How does Lennon’s first lead vocal (well, that we’re talking about anyway) come off? And is it better than Misery (and perhaps more relevantly, could it be worse?)

eMail: beatlesstuffology@gmail.com

Twitter: @beatles_ology

Squid Game

A bloody and violent Korean TV show takes the world by storm. But can it live up to the hype?

What’s The Show? Squid Game.

What’s It All About, JG? Somewhere on an island off the coast of Korea, contestants who are in various desperate situations due to debt and poverty are driven to compete in lethal games for the amusement of a bunch of rich assholes. Yeah, that’s pretty much it.

Oh alright, you want more?

Phil Wang, Sidesplitter

What’s The Book? Sidesplitter: How To Be From Two Worlds At Once by Phil Wang.

What’s It All About, JG? It’s a not-exactly-a-memoir book that addresses a bunch of topics that stand-up comedian Phil Wang feels the urge to write about – food, comedy, culture and so forth. The book is divided into ten chapters, each dealing with a relevant topic, as Wang explores each one in his own rather rambling but appealing style. Ranging anywhere between the serious to the extremely silly, Wang takes each subject and devotes his attention to it in his own inimitable style.