Sweet Sixteen. I went to see it last night and it’s excellent. Ken Loach is a supreme manipulator of emotion. If he wasn’t allergic to happy endings he’d be bigger than Spielberg. Him and his damned inconvenient integrity. The film is great and, according to the BBFC, it is as dangerous to children as the film I nearly went to see last night, Baise-Moi. The French film with the (allegedly) gleeful amounts of rape and murder. They both get 18 certificates but if you watch Sweet Sixteen you would be hard pressed to see why. There’s no nudity, the drug use is all off-screen and the small amount of violence is sensitively and inexplicitly handled. But it is as dangerous as Baise-Moi because it contains some words, one in particular, that the censors don’t like. Can you guess what it is? Yes, it’s the one for everyone’s favourite piece of anatomy. I have to say that as the film is set in Greenock, not far from diskant tower and as Ken Loach has used local actors, I know just how well he’s done at capturing his characters’ voices. And yes they are saying “cunt” a lot. Big Deal. The kids throwing fireworks outside my window are too. Why is it that films about growing up are always kept away from the age group they are about? I won’t get onto how I think this shows the BBFC to be suffering from geography- and class-based bias, just this: Why not use a combination of the new 12A rating and the consumer advice now on every poster (i.e. “contains strong language”) to let folk decide for themselves, rather than class a well-made and touching (hate that word) film alongside Zombie Flesh Eaters?

If nothing else, it devalues the 18 certificate as a guide to those seeking out morally reprehensible filth.

Get Your War On. The Guardian should syndicate it instead of that Doonesbury column I can never spot the punchline of. Haven’t laughed more at work for too long.

As I haven’t been doing a lot of stuff, here are some useful links to help those who might be feeling a bit disconnected at the moment.

* CND are looking for 50 more people to agree to break the law by signing this pledge.

* “If a car is stolen, it can be fitted with a computer to enable it to be tracked – so why not apply the same principle to finding missing children?”

* I like this site about bikes, not least because it pointed me to this barcode generator.

* Sarah Hepola sent us a postcard on her travels that she writes about.

* I love Radio 3, especially since I got their downloads to work properly. There’s Wauvenfold and Lonesome Organist live sets, plus a Bjork interview for starters. [She got burgled, you know, but the stories aren’t interesting]

* RTMark, which I found in our links database has more great ideas than you could ever do justice to.

* And if all that’s not enough, this link takes you to any recently updated weblog. See? Try again. Look! it’s different.

Just back from seeing [a corporate indie band] and oh deary me. Big bus, more crew than band members, laminate passes. And guess what? They were acting like dicks! Ninety minutes for them to soundcheck, zero minutes for the support bands. We’ll have this area here for our merchandise and you’ll have to stay out of the dressing room all night, boys, the bass player is female. You need to borrow a plug? Spares! Re-mem-ber Spares! And finally, they parked their van where it blocked the other bands from getting out.

Were they worth it though? Must have been, they had ‘AAA’ on their passes and lots of shiny posters. Their badges come in sets in plastic bags. No, they were crap. So inoffensive I was offended and so slick I wanted to sandpaper their faces. But The Kids loved their airbrushed angst and jumped up and down like there really was meaning and passion in the songs. They might become big enough that the shitty behaviour of them / their crew doesn’t stand out so badly but right now they look ridiculous and fake to me. Escort offstage and two bouncers on the door of the dressing room? Please.

Beats shopping…

On Saturday: Offspring sucked while NOFX were surprisingly OK (“Idiot son of an asshole…” hohoho), if pseudo-punk is your thing. Slipknot were a bunch of wusses. Saying “godamn motherfucker” doesn’t scare anyone and there was more moshing going on at …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead. They win for liberating cans of juice from backstage and throwing them to the audience. I saw Silver Pill at the new band stage, they were interesting. I can’t remember who else played that day, they must have sucked.

Sunday I was more in the mood for. The Bellrays kicked off, rocking indecently hard for so early in the afternoon. They’re like music from an alternate past, where rock moved towards soul instead of virtuosity in the early 70s. Ow it was intense. Have to be seen live. Most of the other bands I saw were crap: Vines, Leaves, piss off. However, Zuba, on the new bands stage were in the right weather for their summery African-styled tunes. Them I liked.

So that’s the White Stripes then? OK I see the appeal. They sounded much better with just two people than all the overstaffed rock bands I saw over the weekend (Jane’s Addiction, Reindeer Section, I’m looking at you). And they’re charismatic enough to hold an audience (Pulp and Stereo MCs scored highly here too, despite my lowish expectations).

Then I got bored with guitars (Where were the electronic artists?) and went to the dance tent (sponsored by Grant’s Vodka). Carl Cox was there, with 100s of monged Weegies and their kids, all counting up to four over and over again. I left when it got too crowded out of a misguided notion that I should see the Strokes. NO! The Wanks more like. The singer’s too pissed to stand or speak and I’m supposed to applaud? All Your Songs Sound The Same, you could at least make an effort to gloss over it. If they are style over substance they forgot the style today and there’s not much there. Hey, it’s Glasgow, last date of the festivals, lets just do it drunk. Don’t let Butlins fuck you over on the way down you arrogant prick. Ugh. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, I should have stayed in the dance tent. No-one there was half as incoherent and they could all still move.

But yeah, Sunday was fun. A whole sunny weekend in Glasgow! Rock.

I went and saw a couple of films and a couple of authors and managed to not see any comedians except the ones who hang around in bars waiting to be recognised. Baader is easily more entertaining than you’d think a film about Marxist-Leninist terrorists could be. It focuses more on Andreas Baader than the RAF as a whole and it’s a mix. There’s funny scenes like in the courtroom where they all say “ich bin Baader,” Spartacus-style, but the director doesn’t (entirely) shy away from the violent spiral the group got into by following their rhetoric through. The opening scene is proper rousing stuff though, a montage of 60s moments set to “Kick Out The Jams”. An hour after the film had finished I wanted to see it again, there’s depth there as well as the cute art student-types with AKs.

The other film I saw was very different (and not just to Baader but to just about everything ever). The Happiness of the Katakuris is like if the Addams Family ran a guesthouse with the von Trapps. It’s Bollywood-esque in its eagerness to break into song at variously appropriate times (falling in love, dying of a knife wound, whatever). All their guests die despite the family’s best efforts but through disposing of the bodies as a family, they grow closer together and find happiness. Probably a film people will love or hate, but it earnt a round of applause at the festival and I think it deserved it for the opening animation alone. It’s what Jan Svankmeyer would have done if he wasn’t sweeping floodwater out of his cellar.

Well then. In Glasgow on a friday there was none of your fey East Coast acoustic nonsense. We’re Hard Men and we like our Rock to not be pink and crumbly. Triple bill of aft-rock bands and for the first time in ages I wasn’t bored by any of them.

There was FOE, apparently related to Rothko in some way, who did the instrumental rock thing. They had short songs with flashy / virtuosic / wanky guitar playing that made me think of the catchy bits of King Crimson. Funkier and more foot tappier than that makes them sound. Good and with grooves and things.

Then Cat on Form played. As I am the only diskanteer to not know who the Oedipus were, believe me I’m taking an objective view. They Really Are Very Good Indeed. Fierce little pocket monster punk rock. Yuck no that makes them sound like pop punk. Oh I know you’re looking to us for wise words but you need to take my word for this because I am Never Unstinting in my praise of bands. All my thoughts about bands start with “I liked them but…” Not this one. I liked the songs the attitude the spasms the t-shirts the whole thing. I wanted an encore. I clapped fit to make my car-bruised hands throb. But because they are hosted here you won’t believe me. Damn cynics.

Non-credibly, this was (I think) only the second time I’ve seen Lapsus Linguae play. Remember that if you’re ever tempted to think I know about music. I should be ideally positioned to trace their path to stardom or comment on how their interaction with the home crowd has developed. Can’t do that. Sorry. You can read better about them elsewhere. All I can report is that no-one got their balls out, there was one spitting incident but it didn’t involve phlegm, they cantered around the audience for a bit and I liked it. Does that make them sound dull? They weren’t but you probably know that.

What I have been doing recently is getting knocked off my bike in various ways. This morning I had the classic ‘car-door-opened-in-face’ and I bounced and rolled into the road like a rubber ball with sore bones and a foul mouth. I have to loudly sing the praises of the man from Argyle Locksmiths (Argyle St, Glasgow) who got me a chair and water, retrieved my bike and made sure I got the details of the door-wielding maniac / actually quite contrite and decent lady. Any lock-related needs you have in Glasgow, that’s the place to go.

When waiting in the Western’s waiting room, if I had chosen things to have with me I would have been reading The Journals of Isabelle Eberhardt, who now tops my list of People I Would Invite Round To Dinner If They Weren’t Dead. Anarchist, Islamist, Sensualist, Journalist, Nomad-ist, Transvestite-ist, whatever. All that, or: Individual. And then drowned in a desert at age 27? That’ll be what they call liviing fast and dying young, but she did this 100 years ago. Beat that Kurt Cobain / Jimi Hendrix / Jim Morrison / all you boring rock icons with your conformist, unknowing self-destruction.

I’ve just seen the poster for the Stallone remake of Get Carter. hahahaha. No wonder it went straight to video here.

But I want to see it!

A chance to see him throw someone from an american soap opera offof Gateshead carpark. (Or wherever the septic equivalent of newcastle is.) And the scene where he orders a pint of bitter IN A TALL GLASS:

Carter: “give me a bottle of Budweiser / Miller / Coors [Sly, who’s your agent dealing with for this scene? – hack director]. IN A TALL BOTTLE.”

Primary school kids running part of their school.

“There was some consternation at the SAC when they rang to speak to the managing director of Room 13 and were told by the school secretary that she would call back when she was out of PE”

Hehe. Noisy Buckie-punk action last night with The Alpacinos at the Cathouse. It must not have been a school night because the place was packed. Easily the busiest I’ve seen it on a Monday and folk were jumping about too (gasp). Kids, eh. Too much cola and fizzy pop. Dead good set from the band: big fast and dumb with quality band banter. What’s the word? Oh aye, Fun. No kilts though. Grr! Punk! Yacuntya!

Electro-acoustic show at the RSAMD tonight.