Pete Baran

The 21st Freaky Trigger Annual Between Christmas And New Year Pub Crawl (FTABCANYPC): A Lambeth Walk

After two postponed years, the Pub Crawl is back and back where it belongs on the 29th December. Join us as we tour North Lambeth, take a walk down Lower Marsh, visit old haunts where we used to dance, and drink some drinks of your choice (alcohol strictly optional) and catch up with old and new friends.

The FT Annual Between New Year And Christmas Pub Crawl – the Oxford Circus Wobbly Staircase

POSTPONED UNTIL THE 19th FEBRUARY.

All details below correct for the new date

After a year off for some reason or other (the online pub crawl was lovely but not this), here is  the 22st Annual Between Christmas and New Year Pub Crawl (ABCANYPC). more »

The Freaky Trigger Movie Poll 2019: #10 – #1

Oscars Schmoscars, this is the list about five people have been waiting for. And while there is a lot here in common with the Best Picture lists from this year (and last), the conclusion is somewhat different – albeit partially due to UK release dates. So below we have Queen’s, writers, gangsters and some women who don’t seem significantly littler than the average.

The Freaky Trigger Movie Poll 2019: #20 – #11

Here we go into the top twenty. At this point, those of you who have a big picture view of this kind of thing can probably do the maths and work out that there are more than ten obvious films left – so some things didn’t make the cut.

From this batch we start to get films which had over four nominations, often the big blockbusters and crowd pleasers start to appear. But also still a smattering of smart arthouse choices – you have sports bars, resurrection and electrical monsters solving crimes in here…

The Freaky Trigger Movie Poll 2019: #30 – #21

Here’s the next batch of ten films. Some big studio productions and some tiny indie films too. Again it is notable how many of these films centre on women’s stories (perhaps with the exception of the big studio hits  – though even our number 30 has more interesting female characters than the rest of its series). 

The Freaky Trigger Movie Poll 2019: #40 – #31

Welcome to the FreakyTrigger Top 40 Films of 2019. Quick catch up on the rules, the vote is open to as many people who submit a ballot. Voters submit up to 20 films in order, which are ranked. To qualify for the final list a film must get more than one vote.

This year, probably because we didn’t do a music ballot and music is the main bread and butter of FT, we got about five less voters. This also meant that we only had 42 films to get more than one vote. I could tell you what they were – but I will leave that to the end. In particular, quite a lot of really good films didn’t qualify (he said bitterly having binned much of his list). To qualify a film had to have been released in 2019 in the UK, either in cinemas or straight to streaming / VOD. This meant quite a few of our international ballots had Parasite on it – which hasn’t been released in the UK yet. I can’t wait….

The Freaky Trigger Movie Poll 2019

“Hi I’m Alita – some say Battle Angel – and me and my big eyes would like to welcome you to the 2019 FreakyTrigger Movie Poll. When I was rebooted in Iron City in 2563 the first thing I did was try to work out who the creepy Dr. Dyson Ido – who revived me – reminded me of. It was also a bit odd that he had a name which was half Japanese era half vacuum cleaner, but even though he seemed benevolent, he just seemed naturally villainous. So searching my incomplete historical database when I wasn’t beating the crap out of baddies in half decent but weightless CGI, my cybernetic brain came across a name. Christoph Waltz. Who apparently was a movie star in the 2010’s. Further searching in the hours I did not sleep, I became obsessed with the films of 2019 – and in particular what the readers of FreakyTrigger thought of them. So I sent this message back in time just before my important Rollerball game to find out (its not Rollerball but it is)”

Thanks, Alita, and I bet with your big eyes you can watch more movies at once. Including your own one – how self reflexive. Though don’t hold your breathe for it cracking the top ten. But thanks nevertheless for the welcome to the fifth annual movie poll. And the third TV Poll*. The rules are simple – rank your top twenty in both categories IN ORDER and send your vote to:

The FreakyTrigger Top 30 TV Shows of 2018

Sooo…… Sorry.

Four years ago I started the FT Film poll (to ape Kat’s music poll – but also because they are pointless fun things to do – and might be better than just putting my own top ten up). Two years ago, in the flush of the film poll going well, and the realisation that most FT readers were watching more TV than films, I thought to throw more visual media into the mix. It was the Golden Age of TV so it seemed to make sense.

The thing is, I don’t watch much TV. I go to the movies. So whilst I could cobble together a list of twenty shows for myself, it was a list that I knew would miss plenty of the best of the year because I had made a decision to not watch them due to time (or couldn’t watch them). So after putting together last years list – I was stuck having to write about thirty TV shows where I had watched just ten of them.

The 21st Freaky Trigger Annual Between Christmas And New Year Pub Crawl: Back To TCR

Twenty Years Ago (1999) I decided to organise a pub crawl on the quietest pub day of the year, and thus the Freaky Trigger annual between Christmas And New Year Pub Crawl (henceforth #FTABCANYPC) was born. Since then we have crawled annually on the 29th December (except from when it wasn’t) around nineteen different parts of London. But for this special 20th anniversary I thought I would go back to the source, the very first route. I am not doing exactly the same pubs, some have changed their names (one four times), and a few are off the main drag. But I’d live you all to come and join the day of the year when you can celebrate friendship and London without it being tied to religious and/or calendrical bullshit.
The route on the day will be:

3pm The Flying Horse (Oxford St opposite TCR Station)
4pm The Jack Horner
4.45pm The Rising Sun
5.45pm The TCR Lounge Bar (previously The Bar @ TCR, The Castle and The Olde Surgeon)
6: 30pm Fitzrovia Belle
7:15pm Carpenters Arms (Whitfield Street)
8pm The Prince Of Wales Feathers (Warren St)

The Freaky Trigger Movie Poll 2018: #10 – #1

And here it is, after leaving a slightly longer gap than hoped – the Freaky Trigger Top Ten movies of the year. Firstly, before anyone says anything, Paddington 2 came out in 2017 (and was number 40 in last years poll you idiots who left it two months before you saw it). Secondly it was a lot closer at the top end than it has been for a long time. Whilst the winner still had plenty of votes on number two, the top three were all – at some stage of the voting – in the lead.

Anyway the gap left time for plenty of speculation which I think named nearly all of these, though maybe not in this order…