A little bit of the big time

It’s that time of the year again when us mere mortals are given the chance to play football on a world stage. I’m talking about the release of FIFA 11 across all formats today. It’s the closest many if us can come to being real footballers (except the prostitute visits) and retailers are falling over themselves to offer the lowest price for the game.

Inevitably, the grocers are offering the best price points with ASDA pushing FIFA 11 for 97p when you trade in a selected game and Sainsbury’s doing it for £25 when you spend £30 in store. A good deal for the consumer at last.

Review to follow – FIFA 11 that is, not the prostitute – (worst £6.80 I’ve ever spent).

There’s been a  big retailer marketing push behind this too. Here’s the trailer / fancy TV advert:

Is all art crap?

In a quest to find my inner culture vulture, I ventured to the South Bank recently to check out the oh so uber-cool Tate Modern museum.

And what a let down! Art? You’ve got to be joking haven’t you? Talk about The Emperor’s new clothes. People who flog this stuff off as ‘art’ must be extremely talented sales and marketing people

Check out this beauty by Barnett Newman entitled ‘Eve’:

The museum describes this oil on canvas as having a purple line which “generates a tension throughout the canvas between presence and blankness, solidity and fragility”. Come again? If you look even closer you might see that it’s just a red picture with a purple line.

Next up is ‘The Snail’ by Henri Matisse:

What another load of rubbish. Apparently Matisse was inspired by a snail to create the “spiral of roughly cut paper”. Are you kidding? I’ve seen a three year old do  better job with a Pritt stick and sugar paper. What’s more, monsieur Matisse had his ‘assistants’ paint the paper – he couldn’t even do that himself. Lazy.

To top it all off I stumbled upon this unimaginatively named ‘untitled’ by Michael Baldwin:

Yes, you are correct, it’s a mirror – and worth a fortune, all in the name of ‘art’.  Imagine my luck when I got home to find I’m sitting on a gold mine. I’ve got loads of these in my flat, some bigger than the one on display in the museum. My landlord has missed a right trick not knowing how much these things are worth. Better keep it a secret from the insurance company too.

It’s not just the birds that are angry

So if you don’t know what Angry Birds is I have no hope for you. This game has been the #1 app in literally every country with over 6 million sold and now available to Android users. Big money for Rovio who make the game, but big frustration for me – simply because it’s so bloody hard. I thought completing every level was tough, but getting those elusive three stars is nigh on impossible. The smug look on those green pigs when you fail is enough to make you throw your iPhone at the nearest hard surface.

I’ve heard that there’s talks of an Angry Birds movie; at first I did laugh, but there have been even stranger brand extensions that have worked, and making movies from video games is nothing new, so why not? There’s already a big global fan base in place which could easily be exploited. While we wait for the Hollywood big cheeses to get out their cheque books, have a look at the ‘cinematic trailer’ above – I’m getting back on the hunt for golden eggs.