Hazelnut's New Writeups

Eighty Days Yellow (review)

2013-06-14T18:56:01Z

Is another terribad mommy porn novel. Apparently if I liked "Fifty Shades of Grey" this is right up my alley, according to the sticker on the front. No prizes for guessing what it's ripping off, hm?

(Speaking of right up my alley, my housemates forgot to buy bogroll again. This'll do in the interim.)

Still, it's suitably execrable for this series of writeups, however, since I've reviewed so much bad erotica by now it's all starting to blur together, and no doubt will be blurring together in the mind of you, the reader, I thought I'd do something a little... experimental... this time around. It's written by a Vina Jackson who is actually two people, one a woman who works in the City and the other being, allegedly, some sort of celebrity writer who'd rather remain anonymous. And after this, I'd rather remain anonymous as well.

Executive Summary

Violins and BDSM.

A bit more detail, if you wouldn't mind?

Well... I think I'm…

Eurovision Song Contest 2013 (event)

2013-06-09T11:34:20Z

The 58th Eurovision Song Contest Grand Prix was held in Malmo, Sweden following the victory for common sense over Eurotrash that was "Euphoria" by Swedish singer Loreen in 2012 in Baku, Azerbaijan.

This year, there were 39 entrants, and thus two semi-finals, as before, and the big five (UK, France, Spain, Italy, Germany) and last year's winner, Sweden, through automatically. I'm not sure if this is bribing your way to victory or not, but then again, the big five never seem to enter anything that might get anywhere, all things considered, so... yeah. I'm going to concentrate on the finals here, but the semis did have some notable alarmingnesses, such as Montenegro with rapping astronauts, Bulgaria with lots of banging of drums, and many other such stuff. In addition, here in the UK we had some of the most annoying commentary ever during the semis from Scott Mills, a Radio 1 presenter, who was okay but a bit dull, and some seppo called Ana Matronic who apparently is a…

The Internet made me do it (idea)

2013-05-31T23:38:34Z

It has been a very long time indeed since I sat and screamed at a newspaper article, but today was one of such occasion.

The article in question was, in fact, in every national newspaper in Britain, and was cheerleading for bringing in nationwide Internet censorship. The rationale behind this was twofold - the recent conviction of Mark Bridger for the murder of April Jones being one, and the murder of Lee Rigby, the British soldier, as another. In both cases, much mileage has been made in the popular press of how they looked at unpleasant stuff on the internets - in the case of Mark Bridger, he looked at Best Gore (a site which shows, well, gruesome photos and videos of dead bodies amongst other things), and in the case of Michael Adebowale, the machete-wielding hothead, it was Islamic Awakening which is the latest permutation of local rent-a-fundie Anjem Choudhury. Much ink is spilled about how if these websites were somehow banned, these tragedies would never have happened.

…

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (review)

2013-05-10T21:26:31Z

Yes, it's big. Yes, I've put many hours into it in the time I've owned it. Yes, it's a huge time sink. Yes, it looks lovely. Yes, there are many, many, quests. But if I were reviewing it professionally, I'd be hard pressed to justify giving it above 73%. Which is the lowest score you can give a large name game without being blacklisted by its publishers, according to Amiga Power back in the day.

Okay, maybe I'm being a bit stingy. With the various DLC packs (especially Dragonborn, which is markedly better designed than the main game and has ACTUAL PUZZLES IN THE DUNGEONS) I'd boost it up to 80%. But it's not the all-conquering behemoth that people fap themselves red raw over. It has flaws, and they are serious ones, especially for people like myself who were brought up on Ultima VII and Baldur's Gate and the original Fallout and Torment and suchlike. In fact, it was these flaws that caused me to lose interest until I forced myself back to it.

Firstly, the main plot. It's…

school dinners (personal)

2013-05-08T20:13:46Z

In the bad old days of the 1970s and earlier, as evidenced by Law of the Playground and similar websites, school dinners were generally dreary gack that tasted like a tramp's hat, but were healthy. Nowadays, if Jamie Oliver is to be believed, they're all sub-fried chicken emporium nests of obesity. But in the early to mid 1990s, when I was at primary school, they were sort of half and half. They were playing lip service to the healthy eating bit of the National Curriculum as Fondue mentions but were at the same time inserting other things as a sop to actually making the little bastards want to eat it, and not sneak off to the chippy for a crafty battered sausage.

As a result, they were both deeply unpleasant and deeply unhealthy. There was also a large dose of "think of the starving children in Bosnia!" behind it, this being the era of the protracted breakup of, and subsequent humanitarian crises in, the former Yugoslavia. Saying "Well even they'd turn their nose…

Nice guys are good in bed (personal)

2013-04-29T22:32:52Z

Because they finish last.

(Sorry.)