Matty Long
Bio
Jack of all trades, master of watching movies. Also particularly fond of tea, pizza, country music, watching football, and travelling.
X: @eardstapa_
Achievements (1)
Stories (75/0)
Succession
Fantastic satire. Gripping cliffhangers to end seasons. Incredible performances (especially McFadyen and Braun). And one of those shows that manages to have an ending that feels both believable and satisfying. Best TV show ever? Nah, not quite Mad Men or The Sopranos. But then I thought Breaking Bad was overrated.
By Matty Long8 months ago in Critique
The Best UK Supermarket Pizzas
Let’s be honest, pizza is one of the most common favourite foods. Yet there is so much variety within it. Not just toppings, sizes, bases, meat or veggie, etc., but quality, country of origin and all sorts of extremely important factors. I’ve always loved pizza, and as a kid this would usually mean one of two things – a birthday tea at the local “Italian” restaurant (you know the type of restaurant I mean, where the ham and pineapple is never called “Hawaiian” but instead named after the restaurant), or a slice of shop pizza as part of a buffet, or where one pizza is shared between the whole family, but this is apparently acceptable because there is an accompaniment of salad. I tried to reason with my mam many times that at the restaurant I would have a whole pizza to myself and an accompaniment of curly fries but to no avail. As an adult, I now know and of course respect the pain she must have been going through and I don’t even have any kids yet. Anyhow, the shop-bought pizza was always disappointing anyway.
By Matty Long8 months ago in Feast
Paris: a short revue
My adventure to Paris began in what can only be described as a flurry of anxiety, as I discovered the night before I left that I had booked an airBnB (months previously) about two streets away from where a firefighter was killed in the recent riots. I won’t frame this one as budget travel advice because that level of anxiety is a high price to pay for being cheap. Anyhow, this anxiety was soon quashed by the appearance of a mad naked woman in the hallway of my apartment building (a story for another time). The actual journey began in a state of luxury as myself and my mam boarded a first class train to London where we would change to the Eurostar. We had no idea we had booked first class on our interrail passes, and annoyingly the seat I was sat in had no window, but I wasn’t complaining as I wolfed down a free full English breakfast and two cups of tea. Then the ticket inspector told us that we had booked first class tickets on our second class pass, and would have to move. He asked how much we had eaten and my mam informed him she had just had a cup of tea. I, and my stomach, stayed silent and wandered back to the main part of the train, where I found a nice seat with a window.
By Matty Long9 months ago in Wander
Unorthodoxford adventure
I can’t remember why I wanted to go to Oxford. To visit, that is. I knew I would never get into the university. It might be because I’m a fan of The Lord of the Rings and Inspector Morse, but I’m sure there was something more specific. Anyhow, I first tried to convince my friends to go with me (as the group in question had never been on holiday together) in 2020, and let’s just say I think they were fairly grateful when lockdown put a stop to that.
By Matty Long9 months ago in Wander
'It's A.I.! It's A.I.!'
I work as a bid writer, writing applications for companies to help them win contracts. Our industry has recently had to incorporate the use of new AI based technologies, such as ChatGPT, into our delivery model. Rest assured, any prospective clients reading this, AI has not replaced bid writing and will not any time soon, but it’s certainly a change worth noting in how useful, and indeed powerful, AI has recently become. In fact, in my last job, as a McDonald’s manager, one of our daily targets was how many people you could get to use the self-service “kiosks” instead of tills. Till-based staff would literally stand and direct customers away from the tills and towards the digital alternatives; essentially directing themselves into unemployment. Replaced by a machine.
By Matty Long11 months ago in Futurism
The Best Movies set on Trains 🚂 🎥
I don’t know what it is I love about train travel. Probably the pace, and the act of watching the world go by, without the slight fear of a plunging, terrifying doom that comes with looking out an aeroplane window. I like that there is a dedicated person whose job it is to provide tea and snacks. I like sitting in the station bar wondering where everyone is going, and meeting different people. When it goes well, a department in which I’ve been lucky, train travel is very relaxing. I also love escaping inside a movie, and so some of the best films I’ve seen are those with a railway theme. I didn’t catch last year’s ‘Bullet train’ and have heard mixed things, but here are my favourite five:
By Matty Long12 months ago in Geeks
‘The Fabelmans’ and the timelessness of cinema
I really enjoyed ‘The Fabelmans,’ a beautiful, incredibly acted coming-of-age story inspired by the early life of its acclaimed director, Steven Spielberg. It’s a film, not the first of its kind, about a director trying to capture his love of the craft using the medium itself, which I imagine is harder than it sounds. But as a huge film fan, and someone who used to make home movies a lot with my camera as a kid, I really related to it and thought it captured everything about movies that is important to human culture. But, interestingly, it has been released at a time when many people are cynical about the direction of the film industry. Perhaps fuelled by revelations about how sordid an industry it really is, and further plagued by the troubles of the pandemic, people see Hollywood as a machine that churns out rubbish to make money. But I’m just not quite sure that’s true, or ever could be true, and a film like this explains why.
By Matty Longabout a year ago in Geeks
The Best Laid Plans
I might be on the telly soon. The reason being I finished work a few months ago and a friend asked if I wanted to go to a pub nearby to see a comedian. It was a weekday and I usually plan my weeks out quite carefully, having reserved that particular day to work on my writing, so I declined. But it was a free ticket to see a comedian I really like, and he managed to twist my arm.
By Matty Longabout a year ago in Longevity
Bittersweet Sympathy
I personally don’t much care for the current media obsession with Harry and Meghan, especially when newspapers will side-line incredibly important coverage of the ongoing NHS crisis in favour of extracts from the former’s recently published autobiography. I don’t hate them. I don’t love them. I just don’t care. But whatever you think of this couple, one thing you cannot deny is that Prince Harry is a man who lost his mother at a very young age and had to grieve for a woman he loved dearly while the whole population and tabloid media, many of whom had probably never even met her, broadcasted the same level of grief all over the world. If anyone hasn’t seen Stewart Lee’s routine about the lunacy of the reaction to Diana’s death, it sums it up very nicely (link below).
By Matty Longabout a year ago in Families
My Top Ten Movies of 2022
Happy new year. To start the year off, I thought it would make sense to count down my favourite movies of 2022, which was a great year for film. Many of my favourites were streamed on Netflix, which was convenient but does make me sad about the future of cinema. Thankfully, however, at least one of these was a classic big screen masterpiece.
By Matty Longabout a year ago in Geeks