Video Village

Alright? Sam here. It's been a while. It's always been a while. Perhaps it will always be a while. While while while. While E. Coyotes, that's us. And that's either an eminently disposable rap lyric or an utterance pregnant with the possibility of laboured metaphor. If you understand anything about the man who now writes to/for/really, AT you, you'll know the latter was never in peril of neglect....

'S'appening, travellers? Sam here. While true that we haven't spoken since November, I'll yet refrain from conveying a "Happy New Year." Not necessarily (though not necessarily NOT) out of dispassion, but because it's February now and shops are getting the Halloween stock in, thereby promoting such platitudes from banal to vulgar. So I'll just ask, y'a'right? ...I know this isn't actually a conver...

This episode clocks in at 98 mins. Skirting reasonable compassion for your concentration as this does, I was compelled to scour the back-catalogue to confirm my suspicion that this 65th instalment was indeed our pithiest discharge. On the contrary. It would appear that being so fervidly unfiltered and consequently dragging your patience through a kind of psychic Takeshi's Castle has created a Mand...

Greetings, earthlings. There's no reason that noun should be alien copyright, is there? "Earthling" is a great leveller. Anyway, that's enough diplomacy for this week. Hmmm, content, content.... Have you seen The Banshees of-- oh yeah, we talk about that in the episode... It's a trifling juggle, negotiating this relationship between blurb and podcast. Can't really write about the aural cargo - if...

Producing regular video descriptions is rife with self-erected hurdles. If one is to avoid delving into the substance of the content or indeed the content of the substance which is sometimes substance itself but more commonly spontaneous piffle - superior to rehearsed piffle - and scantily-cloaked prejudices, overt in their implications but by inference suggestive of an irony whose being is implic...

Sam “speaking”. It's a strange sensation, this... being on-schedule. An abiding struggle has become... LIKE a job. I don't need no tirades about a fortnightly podcast holding no candle to Alaskan crab-fishing or hostage negotiation, alright? I'm talking about a consistent routine, not exertion, OKAY?! Though you try filling silence for three hours with no water. And yes, that's my choice, but why...

Sam “speaking”. It took us XLs LX episodes to get here. A solid place. By no means is that to fling dusk at Lord Eddard B. No, I refer to the substance/subtext of 98% of our written output - the Stygian quagmire of what would strike any observer as divinely-ordained techno-shambles. We've had all the luck of a Nobbly Bobbly between a pair of straighteners. The candied pebble-dash may suggest forti...

Sam “speaking”. I could prattle on interminably about the Funfiltered hiatus you've been unknowingly withstanding. But, ignoring the nauseating magnitude of this 60th episode, I do recognise you have lives to lead, what's rest of the damnable things. So I will prattle on terminally. I further recognise that, when your washing machine breaks down, you're not that concerned with the nuances of the m...

Sam “speaking”. The relationship between content and blurb is one encumbered. Well, for me it is. I imagine for most it’s as simple as prioritising the production of their vid and, knowing as they do that fucker none reads the “descriptions”, leaving it at a cheeky “Hello” and perhaps a link to their ‘gram and inexplicable merch store. I think you deserve better. That’s a lie. Who are you? Do you...

Sam writing. ----- FADE IN: INT. LIVING ROOM - NIGHT SAM (27, overweight) sits at the table. He stares bleary-eyed at his laptop. It’s early morning and it’s showing. He eyes a pack of cigarettes. S moves the mouse, opening a document titled “Blurbs”. He begins typing. On the screen, we watch him type: “FADE IN: SAM (27, overweight) sits at the table. He stares bleary-eyed at his laptop. It’s earl...

Sam "speaking". ‘Tis the age of the podcast, the business page, the second Instagram profile for one's hobby/vocation/the boundary is ambiguous, etc. And so it’s a safe assumption that you know some poor Gen Y sap peddling their wares Webwide. And while “fake it till you make it” is an aphorism of some wisdom and an attitude of some esteem, don’t you just hate it when your mate employs the pronoun...

Sam "speaking". I had a book called Children’s Miscellany as a child, appropriately. Saturated with trivia, it nurtured the glazomaniac (list junkie) and pub quiz aficionado in me. It forever equipped me with the ability to recite the seven deadly sins at will and a theoretical understanding of how to milk a cow. Doubtless a result of my increasingly ruinous nostalgia, the extract that unfailingly...

Sam "speaking". Fine. I will acknowledge you, you tormenting tusker, since you so rudely refuse to loaf elsewhere. Don’t look at me with those big Dumbo eyes, it inseminates unbearable shame! And yes, readers, you’re welcome for the provision of “Dumbo” and “inseminates” in the same sentence. Your childhood be cussed, those scavenging bastards out there in Twitterville have been gorging on that co...

Sam “speaking”. Here it is. The typically bloated, typically belated and atypically... tinted 54th episode of the FF podcast. The question I have for Norman E. Rosenthal et al. is... was it decided first that the acronym would be "SAD", the constituent terms retrospectively conceived? Or was the end result a quirk of fate? I'll concede that very little contortion or contrivance would have been req...

Sam “speaking”. Allow me to unlatch the portal to my mind. But before I do, let's evaluate why that sentence has uncentred you somewhat. Firstly, the image of a portal on a latch lacks form. You don't quite know what to picture. Secondly, it's not "a" portal. The "the" has necessarily transcended it beyond the figurative. It's "the" portal. It, like, exists. Finally, I'll be the first to admit tha...

Sam "speaking." This episode was recorded over a month ago. Therefore, it is on you to infer the acute insight and scathing commentary that would have attended such hot-button issues as the fall of Afghanistan, the failed recall of Gavin Newsom, the death of Michael K. Williams, summat inevitably Covid-y and the new Matrix trailer. Actually, it can essentially be condensed to "Well, how fucking ho...

Sam "speaking." Since the inception of Funfiltered in 2019, writing these blurbs has required me to don the figurative duds of Jeremy Kettle, to step through the stargate into a dimension of stratified ironies and byzantine prose. These little descriptions, neglected as they were and will continue to be, were only the tip of the iceberg. The world of Jeremy Kettle (or J.K.U. to me and nobody else)...

FADE IN. Saturday last marked the wedding of Dexter Chisp and Pfidze latterly-Chisp, the "Lanka" having been relegated to the obscurities of née - tradition aside, why one would readily assent to "Chisp" is the chef d'oeuvre of confusion. In attendance were several (Baltic) leaves of the Lanka family tree. All behaved in my presence with a queer salmagundi of scowl and supplication, thus affording...

Pfidze Lanka and Dexter Chisp are set to pledge their troughs on July 3rd. Under the sentinel of approx. 70 witnesses, they shall conjugate. In the eyes of the Lord and the state, that is. If the yecchy hoots and jibbers emanating nightly nether my chamber affirm anything, it's that those two are biblically conversant in what one imagines to be a uniformly unlovely interlock. And one can't HELP bu...

I seize this moment to speak a little about Israel-Palestine. Oh, how I JAPE. ‘T’would appear that my sixty-two years on this marble and the enlightenment accrued therein count for goose-egg. That said, can enlightenment be ACCRUED? Or is it something at which one ARRIVES? There you go. Prima facie attestation to my sagacity. You may argue that raising a multitude of questions without attempting i...

On this ep, the "lads" revisit the Harry Potter franchise - a REUNION, of sorts. Ergo, this segue is the antithesis of ham-fisted. It's veg-open-palmed or some such zinger*. With the easing of lockdown (apparently - who's still keeping tabs? - it's chuffin' whimsical), the extended Kettle clan clustered for a REUNION. The complexity of each kinsperson and a social media character limit preclude me...

Three hours and fifty-six minutes… &#%!?!@ ME! Yes, that is the correct number of symbols. And yes, you will croak it ignorant of that which they substitute. Pluck mirth from ambiguity for once in your damned lives. For the select many of you who scarcely acknowledge the existence of Lithuania, let alone scan its deci-county crime news, let alone peruse the lawless specifics of each municipality,...

It is with a featherweight heart that I teletype this abstract. Yesterweek, I took it upon myself to go a-perambulatin'. The compelled monasticism we have all been practicing to greater, lesser, even lesser and not-at-all extents has sired its unfair share of plumpage. Afooting is now mandatory lest I go the way of Pfidze... FATZE... I am made queasy by my heretofore neglect of this ripe wordplay....

An hour(ish) shorter than the lousily new norm is this week’s episode. Lest I be accused of hypocrisy (forget the “lest”, Pfidze actually dared vaunt such impudence - I delight in language, SHOOT ME!), I shall display my dexterity in pith and restrict this blurb to a mere 100 words. Not only will ye be plentifully apprised of one’s biography, the bulletin will be blazoned with one’s trademark lexe...

Under the Janus moon of this very annum, I renounced my allegiance to the Conservative party. Erroneously, I logicked ‘t’was the caprices of the Tories that contrived the unique architecture what engendered my senescent mate being hospitalised. I allowed petty animus and a sense of private betrayal to cloud my reasoning. Now allow me to concisely explain why and how receipt of my first jab is not...