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THE YES OR NO GUIDE TO THE MONTH AHEAD
BOOKS Martin Amis Social satire from the enfant terrible des lettres. Er, innit.
FILM The Man Inside STOP PRESS: Film set in northern England is drab and dour.
COMEDY Kevin Eldon Dark laughs on late-night radio (it’s like telly without the pictures).
TV The Newsroom Sorkin proves The West Wing was his best thing.
FILM Ted We just hope he’s machine- washable. Mucky pup.
MUSIC Planningtorock But not actually doing it.
COMICS Batman: Knightfall Reissue of the seminal graphic novel (it’s like telly without the sound or movement).
WEATHER Rain It’s depressing when ‘overcast’ is treated as a good thing.
WeLike The things making our world just that little bit better
■ It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Scotsman or woman in possession of any fortune whatsoever must be in want of a holiday round about now. Seeing as we at The List like to recommend the most cost-effective options to our readers, have you considered camping? What about camping in space? In an inspired piece of advertising, tent people Vango have created a video about the ‘first tent in space’, which is piloted by the dashing Herman Vortex. See the adventure at bit.ly/ spacetent.
Continuing the theme of good old-fashioned fun, we also like the Musical Chairs World Championships, which took place recently in Massachusetts. Organiser Fred Smith was hoping for 8000
participants, but only achieved a o not-to-be-sniffed- n at 1500. Still, the a first 6500 rounds f of the game may o have dragged a h little. Apparently, lit grabbing a chair with g your hands is strictly yo forbidden: ‘It’s all ass,’ fo says Smith, who sounds like the worst party guest imaginable. Click on bit. ly/chairs1 to see the madness in action. Finally, we like receiving post! Especially when it contains hand-crafted treasures. Rob Auton sent our Research Manager a pair of custom-made ‘Yelevision’
glasses to promote his Fringe show, which is all about the colour yellow (more info at bit. ly/y-vis). That
should help to correct her jaundiced view
of the world – oh
wait . . .
NEXT ISSUE Wednesday 2 August
EDINBURGH FESTIVALS We don’t know if you’ve heard, but every year, round about August, the city of Edinburgh likes to have a wee party, not entirely dissimilar to a rural village fête. It’s actually rather lovely – there are some dramatic types dotted about, some wandering minstrels, a couple of bagpipers, a few authors – even a comedian or two. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? Why not look out for our next issue, where we’ll tell you a little bit more about it?
96 THE LIST 19 Jul–2 Aug 2012