16 Years of Sheep Shagging

"My name is Frankie and I am a violent man", so says the main protagonist in Richard Jobson's "16 Years of Alcohol" which Alma and I dragged our hung-over arses down to see last night. It's a gloomy movie but if you've ingested 16 years worth of alcohol the night before then it fits your mood perfectly; I think it was Scottish writer William MacIllvaney who said the when you are hungover "even the weather is subjective to your mood", well films work like that too. Try watching Miss Congeniality after skulling 15 pints the night before and you'll puke!

I loved the film even though I've always thought the director was a prat in real life. It's the story of a dying man and his piss-poor attempts at redemption; it draws heavily on The Clockwork Orange (in fact some scenes are directly copied from that film and there is a big Clockwork Orange poster on Frankie's Wall - subtlety was never Jobson's strong point!). Critics here in the USA also said that it reminded them of Trainspotting but that's just journalistic laziness, yes two of the Trainspotting actors appear in it (Kevin McKidd and Ewen Bremner), and it's set in Scotland, that's where the similarities end. Trainspotting was a full in-yer-face trip, this film is more transcendental. See it if you can.

So apologies to all in Scotland and Europe who probably saw this film last year when it came out there, but this is the run up to Tartan Day here in NYC and I'm on a promote Scottishness bandwagon this week.

"Whaddya mean you don't know what Tartan Day is?"

"What is it?"

"It's the first Saturday of April when all the ex-pat Scots living in the US get together and have parade down 6th Avenue in Manhattan. At the front of the parade are a line of wobbling wooly fat sheep, the Scotsmen walk closely behind, lifting the front of the kilt in the air, screaming "Fr-e-e-e-e-e-dom" at the top of their lungs! You haven't seen this? Really?".

Alright so this is a wee bit of an exagerration but there will be a lot of kilts in town for this officially SBTSTO (Sanctioned by The Scottish Tourist Office) holiday. It means nothing other than the excuse for a good piss-up and that's fine with me.