Stiff Upper Lip » Needlessly Messianic

“My phone got stolen and I lost all my numbers”

February 23rd, 2010
Funny Bone, Stiff Upper Lip, Surreyal, Updates

You want an anecdote to demonstrate how polite the British can be? Here’s one.

You know those times when you receive a text message from someone whose number you haven’t yet stored as a contact? I’m sure we’ve all had moments like that. Back in India if something like this happens you’d probably send back a message saying “Who’s this?”, appending an ‘lol’ perhaps if the text was funny. Or maybe even “Who the fuck are you?”, in case you want to practise your French.

If the same thing happens here in UK though, this is the standard response people send back:

I’m sorry, but I lost my phone [alternatively, 'my phone got stolen'] and I lost all my numbers. May I know who this is?

I kid you not, but this has happened with me at least 5-6 times so far – especially when I’m exchanging numbers with someone for the first time and the other person forgets to save my name as a contact. Then, when I get back to them via text (and if they’d forgotten to store my details), every time I got back a text which says pretty much precisely what I wrote above.

I can imagine British people having secret meetings in hidden lairs across the nation to decide protocols on issues such as this. “Yorrite lads, we need to come up with a jolly good protocol to maintain our stiff upper lip if we make a social faux pas in forgetting someone’s cellphone number.” I wonder whether cellphones sold in Britain have a ‘panic button’ which these genteel folk can rely on to send the nationally approved text response to awkward social situations.

It’s either that, or the poor British folk have rotten luck in actually getting constantly mugged and having their phones stolen.

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Last Wednesday we had Headphone Disco at our students’ union nightclub. Basically, no sound is pumped through external speakers; instead, everyone gets their personal set of wireless headphones and can switch between a grand total of three different music choices – ‘DJ station A’, ‘DJ station B’, and ‘off’. (The two DJ stations being DJs on stage playing different music.)

Watch a clip from Headphone Disco at University of Surrey’s Rubix

As you can see in the short video above, it can be quite a weird experience. Bunch of folks seemingly dancing to…nothing at all. You can be on the dancefloor jigging along to some song when all of a sudden you realize all of your friends around you are on the other station and dancing along to something completely different.

The system does have its drawbacks. For instance, there was this one instance when both DJs started playing…started played…songs by Miley Fucking Virus.

Somewhere on this planet, Miley 'SnakeMonster' Virus is celebrating this coup

The ‘off’ station came handy at such times. The other problem was that wearing a decent set of headphones meant that a lot of people laboured under the delusion that they were good singers. The cacophony of ’sing-alongs’ that I could hear even over my headphones was so terrible that it must be outlawed under international human rights standards.

When I first heard of Headphone Disco, I was curious to know how they handled clubbers breaking the supplied headphones. Did they have tracking systems installed, and dispatch a SWAT team to bust you in case you broke one?

Turns out they just take a £5 deposit before handing out the headphones.

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While I’m at it, I might as well give an update on what’s happening in my life.

After a long Christmas break of basically watching my toenails grow, university life has been extremely hectic ever since the new semester started. I think I need to make a copy-paste template saying “I’m busy with work for The Stag and MAD TV and CoLab/SCEPTrE and gooble gobble gooble gobble“. Because I am, and also with all the labs and lectures which make for a much heavier study schedule. I usually get a handful of hours of sleep daily; after that, it’s back to keeping track of all the different things I’m doing and trying to make sense of what to do when.

BTW, I’m also blogging about my experience for The IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology). IET is UK’s professional body of engineers; in a sense, somewhat like IEEE in USA but covering more engineering disciplines. (Trivia – University of Surrey’s Vice Chancellor, Professor Christopher Snowden, is the current president of IET.)

I swear I think they've Photoshopped my neck to make it appear longer

So anyway, these ’student diaries’ have been up for quite a while, and I intended to mention them here but totally forgot. Until today, when they pushed this out as the lead story in their student newsletter. On the other hand, I’m surprised that I got all that Hitchhiker’s stuff approved in my submissions to the IET so far.

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Sherlock Holmes v2.0

January 3rd, 2010
Motion Pictures, Reviews, Stiff Upper Lip, Vidddeos

My rating of Sherlock Holmes: 9 / 10
Directed by: Guy Ritchie
Cast: Robert Downey Jr, Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Mark Strong, Eddie Marsan
Studio: Warner Bros

A good way to wrap up the year 2009 was to go and watch Sherlock Holmes with friends. (This was before New Year’s Eve, but anyway…) This time, I was slightly more ready than the last time I went to ‘the flea pit’ here. I knew I needed to get refreshments and drinks enough to last a good three hours and exercise bladder control. Still don’t get why Odeon doesn’t stop patrons from bringing in their own food and drinks from outside their premises. After all, most multiplexes make money on this, not ticket sales (most of which goes to the distributors). First the companies here aren’t dickish enough to implement policies that will increase their revenue, and then they cry about ‘the recession’. What they do, instead, is to completely try to piss you off by showing ads for half an hour. Thankfully, not in 3D this time.

Anyway, coming to the movie at hand. Sherlock Holmes is a complete revamp of the essence of what Holmes is all about. This new Downey Jr version of Sherlock Holmes is more of Jason Bourne than Peter Cushing. Downey Jr is this totally badass superhero who labours under the illusion that ‘talking fast = extremely intelligent’. Dr Watson (played by Jude Law) is his faithful superhero sidekick – and in a break from tradition, is not dimwitted; he often cracks clues in step with Holmes, certainly gives the big man a hand in dispatching villains during fisticuffs.

Watch the trailer for Sherlock Holmes

My first reaction a few minutes into the movie – as someone who is a fan of the books – was “What the hell?! They’ve reduced Holmes to solving supernatural mysteries?! What a huge insult to someone who believed so much in rational ideas!” As it turns out, my fears were unfounded as a plot twist at the end resolves this not-so-desirable situation.

The plot has nothing to do with any published Sherlock Holmes story so far. Basically, Holmes is called along to investigate a string of murders associated with Lord Blackwood (a wannabe Count Dracula), played by Mark Strong. (At first I thought it was Andy Garcia, but it turns out he’s the guy who played Hani Pasha in Body of Lies.) Now, the plot is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike any Sherlock Holmes story / novel ever written. It seems to exist in a parallel universe where Jason Bourne has been sent of Victorian-era London. It’s this Hollywood school of thought that occasionally saying “fookin’ arsehole” instead of “fucking asshole” is the only thing needed to make an accent ‘British’. That occasional attempt at a ‘British accent’ is the only attempt made to have ‘British characters’. It’s as if the story is set in ‘Washington-hampton DC-shire’ instead of London. Yes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did mention he was a good boxer and stuff, but that was more of a footnote than an actual characteristic of the man. Look at this clip from the 2009 Sherlock Holmes movie below, which is more Fight Club than a genius mastermind who solves cases simply by smoking pipes in his room and spouting “The game’s afoot!” once in a while.

Watch the clip Not Done from Sherlock Holmes

…compare it to the older BBC version of Holmes…

Watch this clip from A Study In Scarlet featuring the BBC version of Sherlock Holmes

I mean, the BBC version of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson were portly gentlemen who used to trundle along like poodles, discharge a revolver once in a while – but mostly stick to ‘consoling distraught ladies’ in ‘their study’ while ‘drinking tea’. The dismay on the faces of my British compatriots in the theatre was very noticeable. When the movie finished and people were leaving, I could sense a disturbance in the Force – a quivering of the British stiff upper lip, perhaps. A few people sitting around me actually left midway into the movie, which goes to show how distraught they were; considering that nobody left (or told me shut up) when I spent a fair part of Avatar simply laughing my head off.

So far, we’ve established that Guy Ritchie’s Holmes is significantly different from the original. But does this movie entertain you? HELL YEAH!!! I enjoyed every single moment of this movie, despite all the changes that have been made. Change is good. Do I mind Holmes being transformed into a kickass superhero minus Iron Man like armour? Hell no! Despite putting in a love angle by promoting Irene Adler (played by the cute Rachel McAdams – remember her from Mean Girls?) to a fairly major character, you’re ready to forgive this sort of flirting in Victorian-era England because of the chemistry between the characters.

In ways more than one, Sherlock Holmes the movie works towards making the quintessential detective more of a human being – while at the same time making him more of a superhero. I still like the Holmes from the books, but for the big screen this version of the character works better.