Stuff for Dads

  Frankie & Benny's children's meal

Price: £3.95 (service not included).

Age restriction: Available for children up to the age of 11.

Contents:

• Main course. Options available include: Margherita pizza, pasta, jacket potato or sausage and mash.
• Small bowl of vegetables or side salad (without dressing or onion).
• Dessert. (Ice-cream, fruit salad or banana & custard.)
• Unlimited soft drinks (including milk!).

A Junior Meal is also available for £6.25 with similar contents but larger portions and a more grown up selection of main courses.

The full menus are available online, complete with pictures.

Comments: I've been to plenty of restaurants where the kid's menu has pretty much been a choice between burger, sausage or chicken nuggets, all with chips and beans, and the waiter has sighed deeply when I've tried requesting three glasses of milk. I've felt tolerated rather than welcomed.

I was thus very pleased when we wandered into Franky & Benny's at the weekend and got the impression that they're actively trying to attract families with young children. The kid's meals have plenty of healthy options and the food is presented in such a way that children will actually eat it. For instance, the fruit salad was simply some large bits of chopped up fruit without sauce or slime. The portions were also remarkably large - the pizzas were thin but the size of an adult plate.

Each of our kids was given a fun pack containing an activity book, a magnetic jigsaw and an eleven-in-one crayon where different colours can be cycled through by pulling out the current tip and shoving it in the other end to propel the next colour into place. The crayons alone kept them busy until the food arrived.

The service was good - I didn't even have to ask for straws. The design of the restaurant itself wasn't great, however. The walls were decorated drably with old photos. The kitchen was open to view, which was all very well, but extremely noisy.

As far as I was concerned, the adult food was tasty. I'm not much of a foodie, though. In my first term at university, everyone else in my hall of residence lost weight because they couldn't stomach the catering. I put on a stone. Still, everyone in our group at Frankie & Benny's enjoyed their meal, while the kids ate well and were kept entertained. This made me happy.

Conclusion: From now on, if I have the kids with me, my vote is going to be for Frankie & Benny's every time.

Pros:

• Exceptional value.
• Excellent selection.
• Relatively healthy.
• Simple presentation.
• Free refills.
• It's like the whole concept was devised by someone with children or something freaky like that.

Cons:

• The high-chairs don't look fantastic.
• Decor is dull.
• Lots of background noise (but if your children have a tendency to scream embarrassingly, this might not be such a bad thing...)

Rating: 5/5.

Labels: service

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  In Bruges

Starring: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes & Fleur from Harry Potter.

Rated: 18.

Story: After a bungled job in London, two hitmen (Farrell & Gleeson) are sent to lie low for a while in Bruges. (It's in Belgium!) One of them hates the place, the other quite likes it. They sightsee, they go to the pub and they try not to get into trouble.

They get into trouble.

Their boss (Fiennes) turns up to sort things out. Violence ensues.

Comments: Yes, we went to the cinema and saw something that didn't involve cute, animated creatures or a boy wizard! We got to go straight in without having to apply for a second mortgage to buy some pick'n'mix or having to frog-march a posse of children to the toilet before the film started. It was fantastic! Then again, we did have to cough up full price for our tickets rather than the pound or two we normally pay for the kid's movie on a Saturday morning. The pick'n'mix might have been cheaper...

In Bruges is never going to be the Saturday morning kid's movie, however. It's full of swearing, gory death, drug use and talk of suicide. The characters are often racist, xenophobic and heightist. It's very funny in places but grim and distressing in others. I can't really see Pixar remaking it with rabbits.

I imagine the writer (Martin McDonagh) came up with the idea after a series of unfortunate events left him stranded in Bruges. Picture the scene: Doomed to several days of canal trips, Medieval churches and swans, he goes to the cinema and watches Mr & Mrs Smith to cheer himself up. This doesn't help. He has some beers. This does help... until he gets the bill and realises he's been ripped off. He decides to get even with Bruges and Hollywood in one fell swoop. He decides to write a film about hitmen that isn't all amoral action and excitement but explores the motivation and guilt... while poking fun at Belgium. Excellent.

The cast does a good job, managing to keep things going even in the few uncomfortable moments when the script shifts suddenly from witty banter to disturbing soul-searching. The whole film is bizarre and unlikely but if you've been to Bruges, you'll be too busy laughing and muttering, 'Hey! That's the bridge along from where we stayed!' to notice.

Since there are plenty of lovely shots of Bruges in the film but much of the humour comes from taking the rip out of the city, it's hard to know what the Belgian Tourist Board makes of it all. I think they may be gambling that if you haven't been to Bruges, you won't get the joke and will just think that it looks like a nice place to visit. They may be right.

Conclusion: Like a trip to Bruges with more laughs, added hitmen and less expense.

Explosions: None.
Political correctness: None.
Swing parks: One. (We went there; it's great.)
Swans: Loads. (We saw them; they didn't bite.)
Clock towers: One very tall one. (We didn't go up there; it was too much like effort.)
Cute, fluffy animated rabbits: None.

Rating: 4/5 if you've been to Bruges, else 3/5.

Labels: comedy, film review, thriller

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  Sonic the Hedgehog soft toy

Price: £10

The box suggests that there are three other toys in the series. Tails is definitely widely available. Knuckles has been sighted. Dr Robotnik (or is it Eggman?) may or may not exist.

Comments: If a marketing firm were told to sit down and create a mascot for a videogame firm, it's highly unlikely they'd come up with Mario. Let's be honest, he's a fat plumber with a dodgy Italian accent and ill-advised facial hair. He's not really first choice as the face of a multi-billion dollar corporation. Nonetheless, he's probably the most bankable star in the world of interactive entertainment. Stick the name 'Mario' on the front of the box and any game will fly off the shelves. Thanks to his roots in the days of 8-bit technology, he looks weird and he has a bizarre life-story but he also has a portfolio of stunning work which goes back decades. There's hardly a duff game in his résumé. It doesn't matter that he's a reject from The Village People - Nintendo's quality control on his titles has ensured he's a videogame legend.

The marketing firm might well devise Sonic, though. They'd come up with Lara Croft first, for the obvious reasons, but Sonic would be next on the list. He's a spiky, blue hedgehog with attitude who runs really fast and wears trendy trainers. He's parent-friendly, he's cool and he understands where the kidz are at... or whatever. There must be something appealing about him anyway - he's barely starred in a good game in ten years and yet Sega still keep making them. Someone must be buying them.

About the only thing Sonic seems to be better than Mario at, is being a soft toy. This effort is more cuddly, higher quality and, quite frankly, vastly less hideous than the plush plumber that we got last year. As an added bonus, it's also vomit resistant and can withstand being machine-washed with anti-bacterial washing powder. (Hedgehogs that show attitude round here soon learn the error of their ways...)

The only downside is that it would have been nice if Sprog2 could have been obsessed with Mario:



or Pokémon:



like his older brother. Then we wouldn't be drowning in quite so many cuddly toys and I'd have to help out with fewer rubbish games. (Sigh.)

We've got the tails toy too:



It's OK but does anyone care about Tails?

I thought not.

Still, if you have a Sega fan of your own, you can't go far wrong with one of the Sonic toys (even if he is an irritating human-hedgehog Frankenstein monster of a marketing creation).

Conclusion: If only Sonic's games were this good...

Height: 12 inches.
Fabric: Plush and shiny.
Stuffing: Quick-drying.
Likeness to the actual character: Passable.
Best feature: You get to kick Sonic down the stairs when the kids aren't looking.
What I have to do now: Put all these toys back exactly where I found them, or I'm a dead man.

Rating: 4/5.



Available from GAME.

Labels: toy/game review

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  Mulholland Drive (DVD)

Starring: Naomi Watts, Laura Harring and Justin Theroux.

Rated: 15.

Story: An aspiring Hollywood actress (Watts) attempts to help a beautiful amnesiac (Harring) remember who she is and why she's carrying a bag full of cash. Meanwhile, a director (Theroux) has a run-in with the mob and a hitman bungles the theft of a book of phone numbers. Or maybe they don't. Maybe that's already happened or is going to happen or maybe it's all a dream. But whose dream? And what's that odd blue key about and why is the bogey man camping out behind a diner? And who were those people before they became other people? And... Argh, here comes the attack of the scary pensioners! Run away!

The End.

(Or is it The Middle in the wrong place? Who knows?)

Comments: Having small children has affected my life in various ways. One is that I haven't been to the cinema much in eight years, another is that they've Swiss-cheesed my brain. This combination of issues means I've got plenty of films to catch up on but that I sometimes get confused over which one is which. I thought this was going to be a hard-nosed thriller featuring Tim Robbins. Turns out I got the wrong address. That's Arlington Road. (Good thing I'm writing reviews not driving a taxi.) I wasn't entirely prepared for a David Lynch movie.

Yep, it's time to break out the dancing dwarves...

As soon as I realised my mistake, I began to expect levels of weirdness equivalent to a bad episode of Twin Peaks. Thankfully, Mulholland Drive quickly develops into a dark but interesting mystery with a bit of oddness thrown in (like a good episode of Twin Peaks, hurrah!). It all seems to build towards a final forty-five minutes of fast-paced revelations and shocking conclusions.

Then, suddenly, there's some gratuitous lesbian sex that's raunchy enough to seriously raise the eyebrows of any spouse, grandparent, small child or pet who unexpectedly walks into the room at the wrong moment. After that, it's all mind-bending strangeness. If you've ever been up late at night watching repeats of Top Gear with a grouchy baby and drifted into a bizarre waking dream involving walking teeth and Jeremy Clarkson in drag, you'll know the kind of thing I'm talking about.

Much is explained by the fact that the project was originally filmed as a pilot episode for a TV show. When the show was turned down, Lynch shot some more footage and made it into a self-contained feature. Rather than try to tie up all the loose ends, it would appear he threw in a whole lot more, added a surreal twist and left the movie as a brain-warping conundrum. Whether the puzzle has a solution, however, is open to debate.

I had to go look up Wikipedia in order to find out what was going on. Apparently no one's totally sure. The New York Times wrote that while some might consider the plot an 'offense against narrative order ... the film is an intoxicating liberation from sense, with moments of feeling all the more powerful for seeming to emerge from the murky night world of the unconscious.'

Er, yeah, whatever. Personally, I think there's a con being pulled here and the film is nonsense dressed up as genius. Never mind that the results are entertaining, it has to be said that the Emperor has no clothes.

Conclusion: An intriguing thriller that slowly turns into a bizarre attempt to mess with your head. Watchable but ultimately unsatisfying.

Explosions: None.
Mysterious cowboys: One.
Subplots with no resolution whatsoever: At least five.
Number of surrealists it takes to change a light bulb: Fish.
Who killed Laura Palmer?: That would be telling.

Rating: 3/5.

Labels: film review, thriller

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  Patapon (PSP)

Rated: 7+.

Story: You are the god of the Patapon - a two-dimensional race of stickmen vaguely resembling Mike from Monsters Inc. You must try to recapture the glory days of Patapon supremacy by using your divine powers of rhythm to lead them to a sacred relic at the edge of the world.

Gameplay: The Patapon move from left to right through the levels, taking on wildlife, monsters and opposing tribes. You must guide them towards the promised land by tapping out drumbeats on the shape buttons of the PSP in time with the beat. Different combinations of buttons issue different commands, such as advance, defend or attack. As the game progresses, you gain the ability to control various types of Patapon. Some have spears, some bows and some melee weapons. Different Patapon are more effective depending on which commands you give your army.

Between levels, it's possible to trade items acquired during combat for more troops and to select improved equipment and armour.

Save System: Manual save between levels only. The levels are pretty short, though.

Comments: Considering how many games I play, it's rather embarrassing how bad I am at them. I normally struggle through, though, quite often swapping perseverance and cunning for actual skill. By sheer force of will, I made it to the end of Tomb Raider III, which is probably a great deal better than most people managed, and, while ninja skills and twitch reflexes aren't my thing, if you want someone who's good at finding AI quirks or gameplay loopholes to exploit then I'm your man. Generally, I get by.

One genre that is pretty much beyond me, however, is rhythm action. I can't even clap along with a beat to save myself, so trying to press buttons in synch with music is harder than changing a nappy with one hand and feeding a toddler with the other. I just can't do it.

Despite this, I can usually have some fun with rhythm games by relying on the visual prompts. Which makes it a problem that Patapon doesn't really have any...

This is down to the game's relative complexity. It involves not only getting the timing right but choosing the bars of 'music' to command the Patapon in an appropriate fashion for their situation. Deciding what to do, remembering which sequence of buttons to tap and matching them to the beat is a lot of fast-paced multi-tasking. Other rhythm games give plenty of warning as a particular button press approaches but Patapon can't because it's up to the player which button to press. The only visual cue is that the border of the screen flashes with the beat. To the musically-challenged like myself, this is no help whatsoever.

I did OK to start with and, after a little practice, I even felt I was getting good at the game. Then, halfway through level five or so, the beat changed and I was totally unable to control my Patapon. At all. They just kept falling over and making sarcastic comments about how rubbish I was. The sad thing is, they were right. I had to give up.

This was a shame because the game has a refreshing visual style, decent sound and is quite fun. The length of time it takes to issue commands can be frustrating and there's a lot of replaying of levels required to build up resources but the idea of a rhythm-strategy game is unique. Whether the concept stretches for the whole game, I don't know... and I guess I never will.

Conclusion: A great and innovative game. Probably. If your percussion skills are limited, you might want to go with a rental rather than a purchase - there's almost certainly only so much being booed by stickmen that you can take.

Graphics Sharp, atmospheric and unusual. Like one of those silhouette puppet shows.

Length: A quick poll of people on the internet who have rhythm suggests Medium to Long.

Rating: 4/5 if you can clap to a beat and walk in a straight line at the same time. If this combination of activities is liable to cause you injury or misfortune, however, you might want to give the whole thing a miss.

Labels: computer game review, PSP

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  Swingball Junior Basketball

Price: £30.

Contents:

• Hoop with back board.
• Adjustable stand allowing the hoop to be between 1.5m and 2.15m high.
• Base (which doubles as the box).
• Mini basketball.
• Pump.

Gameplay: It's basketball! Theoretically, there are two teams and the members of each team bounce the ball around, throw it to each other and try to score by getting it through the top of the hoop. In reality, for this to work, you need a large, flat, open area with a hard surface. For it to be fun, you also need older children with decent coordination and roughly similar ability.

Most likely, you'll end up having kids standing in line to take turns shooting penalties or you'll organise a competition to see who can score from the furthest distance.

Object: To get the ball through the hoop as many times as possible without losing the ball in the neighbours garden or a fight breaking out over whose turn it is.



Game length: After you've gone to the trouble of putting it together, you'll want them to play it for at least half an hour.

Number of players: All the children you have, plus every other child in the neighbourhood who happens to be passing.

Age: Any child who can hold a ball will want a shot, even if they can't actually throw... or walk. If you have a child under three, be prepared for plenty of dangling a toddler over the hoop while they think very carefully about how best to drop the ball through.

Comments: Hooray! Sunshine! Thanks to all the rain last summer, I barely managed to review any outdoor gear. With luck, things will be better this year - we've had several (almost) nice days already. Of course, since Sprog1 and Sproglette have incredibly pale skin, I should probably make the most of it just now. If it gets really sunny, they'll explode in balls of fire as soon as they head out the door.

That never make for a fun game of tennis.

So, while I can still get the kids outside without needing umbrellas or having to coat them with an inch of sunblock, it's time to evict the spiders from the shed and see what fun stuff is lying around. Top of the pile is Swingball Junior Basketball.

Despite the manufacturer's assurances, it takes a fair amount of putting together. Trying to take it apart again to fit neatly back in the box is seriously not worth the effort. Once the ball's inflated, it won't fit anyway. We normally just take the stand out of the base and lean it up a corner of the shed. The base is supposed to be filled with sand or water for added stability but a couple of medium-sized rocks work just fine and are a lot less effort.

The ball bounces well and is a good size for small hands. It's a little small and light to control while dribbling, however. It's best to stick to throwing and shooting. The hoop is hinged so that, if anyone tries swinging from it, it folds down rather than breaking. A rubber washer helps prevent the adjustable mechanism from sliding down by itself but ours perished after a year or so. Happily, this had no adverse effects and simply made altering the height easier.

It's possible to miss out a section of the stand and make the maximum and minimum heights 45cm shorter. This is plenty high enough for under-fives.

All in all, the set does its job as a basketball hoop that can be set up almost anywhere. It's sturdy and looks good. Kids are desperate to play with it. That said, basketball is a tricky game to play without the ball being fumbled and skidding off in all directions or kids getting in a scuffle. You'll need a good surface and have to put in plenty of coaching before there's any chance of a proper game. If you're going to go to that much effort, you might want to invest in something more permanent. Still, Swingball Junior is great for target practice and far easier for young children to get to grips with than any racket games.



Conclusion: This is an outdoor game enjoyed by children of all ages and the adjustable height means that everyone can take part. Just don't expect to get any serious basketball going.

Pros:

• It's outside.
• Develops aiming skills and coordination.
• Doesn't involve a TV, Mario, Pokémon or Sonic and it's not pink.
• You don't need a suitable wall to stick a hoop to.
• Can be easily adjusted for children of different sizes.
• Throwing a ball into a hoop is always fun.

Cons:

• Fiddly and time consuming to set up if it's been packed away completely.
• As closely related to real basketball as a plastic club and a ping-pong ball are related to real golf.
• Nailing a wastepaper basket with the bottom knocked out to the side of the shed would be almost as good.
• Actually, just putting the bin in the middle of the lounge and lobbing screwed up paper balls at it would be close enough (and would save you having to go outside... Oh, hang on...)

Rating: 4/5.

Labels: toy/game review

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  Stargate SG-1 Season 1 (DVD)

Starring: Richard Dean Anderson, Michael Shanks, Amanda Tapping, Christopher Judge and Don S Davis.

Rated: 18. As far as I can tell, this rating is pretty much down to some brief full-frontal, female nudity in the pilot episode. The rest of the series ranges between PG and 12.

Story: In the Stargate movie, the US military discover and activate a device which allows a team to travel through an interstellar worm-hole to the planet Abydos. They find a human civilisation very similar to ancient Egypt and make some friends. Then an alien pretending to be the god Ra arrives in an enormous spaceship and things start getting hairy - especially when it turns out the alien has been pretending for a very long time and really is, in some sense, Ra.

The TV series begins a year after the events of the movie. A way is found to access scores of other stargates and more teams are sent out to explore. Unfortunately, Ra's race, the Goa'uld, are somewhat upset by what transpired on Abydos and view humanity as a nuisance to be dealt with. The exploration teams must seek out information, technology and allies in an effort to protect Earth from attack. Team SG-1 is composed of Colonel Jack O'Neill (wise-cracking toughnut) and Dr Daniel Jackson (civilian archaeologist) from the film, along with Captain Samantha Carter (airforce pilot, astrophysicist and babe) and a guy in a red shirt whose days are numbered as soon as the team manages to recruit Teal'c (a warrior formerly enslaved by the Goa'uld).

Most of the stargates lead to worlds with human populations seeded there by the Goa'uld as a slave supply. These human societies are usually technologically primitive and each is descended from a distinct civilisation from Earth's past. ('Hey, look! This week it's Vikings!') They also usually have a problem that only space adventurers who've never heard of the Prime Directive can solve... Since SG-1 contains an expert on all the relevant topics (i.e. ancient cultures, science, aliens and shooting stuff), they're perfectly equipped to sort things out...

Comments: How late am I to this party? I'm a full nine series behind. Thirteen if you include the spin-off Stargate: Atlantis. I've got a bit of catching up to do...

I actually bought this about three years ago to watch while sitting up during the night with Sproglette. I only managed the first five or six episodes, however. It got to the stage where I couldn't entirely be bothered to put the DVD in the machine and ended up watching repeats of Top Gear instead. The pilot episode is good but it's quickly followed by a selection of clunkers involving modern Americans imposing their morals on ancient cultures. These episodes are predictable and tedious.

Making another attempt to watch SG-1 more recently, I almost gave up again. Fortunately, around about episode eight or nine, things start to pick up. The team gets taught a lesson in humility, the situations become more interesting, the back story is fleshed out a little and the episodes become better entwined. The final disc is very entertaining.

The series as a whole has plenty of rough edges, though. For a start, Richard Dean Anderson just doesn't seem quite right in the role played by Kurt Russell in the film. He's not macho enough. (On the other hand, he's likable and I have fond memories of MacGyver, so I'm willing to let him off with it.)

Another element which grates is the bizarre way that the galaxy is inhabited entirely by people who speak modern English. The film makes a big deal of Daniel Jackson having to learn to speak ancient Egyptian to communicate with the people of Abydos but the series ignores the issue almost entirely. Occasionally, SG1 find they understand every word that's said to them except the most important one. This is essentially a pretty cheap way to build suspense and just makes you wonder how they can understand everything else. The truly odd thing is that it would be easy to explain the whole set up in terms of some magic technology conferred by passing through the stargate and which is broken or damaged on some worlds. The writers apparently just don't care. Amusingly, half the cast don't even seem sure how to pronounce the name of the alien race they're fighting.

The biggest problem is the lack of subplots in most of the episodes. This means that the main plot of each episode has to fill out the full forty minutes. There ends up being padding and postulating where there should be some light relief or a secondary mystery. It's like having an episode of CSI with only one murder rather than two - without all the cutting back and forth, unlikely twists and logical flaws are very obvious.

All this is acknowledged by the fact that there's a 'Best of Series One' DVD available which features the first episode and the last three. If you only watched this, you'd miss out on some interesting bits and pieces but it might be the best course of action if you're low on patience.

Conclusion: Starts well and ends well but must have come pretty close to getting cancelled somewhere in the middle. Rent the pilot episode. If you like it, then it's worth persevering.

Explosions: Some.
Excellent episodes: Not enough.
Dodgy science: Plenty.
Minoans speaking English: A surprising number.
Chance of Season 2 being better: High.

Rating: Variable. Disc 2 is a definite 2/5 experience while Disc 5 (the final one) is more 4/5. I guess it all averages out to 3/5 but the strong ending has made me keener to watch Season 2 than might otherwise be the case. (That and the current bargain price of the box sets, anyway.)

Labels: film review, sci-fi

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