Ben Paddon

Tag: Open Letter

  • An open letter to Activision

    Dear Activision,

    I will not be buying your ridiculously over-priced map pack for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Quite frankly you’ve had enough of my money, and considering your poor treatment of Infinity Ward over the last few weeks (as well as the shitty way you’ve treated other companies such as RedOctane and Double Fine Productions) you can consider yourself lucky if you receive any more. I’ve never really been much for boycotts, but you’ve made the decision decidedly easy for me.

    Kind regards,
    Ben Paddon

  • An open letter to Whoever Winds Up Organising This Year’s “Rage Against The X-Factor” Campaign

    Dear loose confederacy of internet protestors,

    You did good last year. You managed to bring to a stop The X-Factor’s streak of inane UK Christmas Number Ones. I applaud you for that. But next year could you… I don’t know… maybe pick a different song?

    It’s not that I don’t appreciate your effort, and it’s not that I don’t like Rage Against The Machine (I don’t, but that’s besides the point), but it seems to me that you could use this as an opportunity to get an independent artist into the UK chart. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to discover that the Christmas #1 was Jonathan Coulton? Or Dan Bull? In fact “Thistopia” would make a perfect candidate for this year’s campaign. And it’s available to buy on iTunes. Perfect!

    It also amuses me that you were given the opportunity to send an anti-X-Factor message a couple of years ago when Malcolm Middleton released “We’re All Going To Die”, but I guess The X-Factor wasn’t such as nuisance then. For some reason.

    You’ve proven you have some kind of phenomenal cosmic power. That’s great. But maybe you could use it to send a message not just to The X-Factor but to the music industry as a whole. And the best way to do that is to throw your support behind an independent artist.

    Think about it.

    Kind regards,
    Ben Paddon

  • An open letter to Companies Who Send Out Spam Email

    Dear Time Vampires,

    Thank you for your rescent correspondence, in which you have expressed an interest, nay, concern that my penis may not be quite as long and hard as my lady friends might perhaps prefer. Your suggestion that I “make [my] pecker glorious!” (a suggestion you made in the interest of “carnal victories!”) did not fall on deaf ears. That being said, while I appreciate your continued engrossment in the size of my sexual organs, your concern is unwarranted.

    Similarly, I do not gamble. I never have done. Alright, technically that’s a lie – when I was 12 I put a £1 coin into a fruit machine in a pub, but I didn’t win anything and the experience left me dispondant towards the notion of gambling. It’s unlikely, then, that I will be visiting any one of the online casinos you have recommended to me over the last six years.

    Finally, I must stress to you that I am not Russian and do not presently live in a house with a Septic Tank, so I must politely decline your cleaning fluid.

    With regards,
    Ben Paddon

  • An open letter to Film Critics

    Dear Film Critics,

    I’m not going to lie, I’m slightly envious of your position. You have somehow managed to reach a point where you are basically paid to tell people what you think of this film, or that film. Bloggers like myself are doing that for nothing, which either means we’re remarkably stupid or you’re remarkably clever. The idea that someone can find a career as an Opinion Merchant is one that appeals to me greatly, and I hope some day to be able to count myself amongst your numbers.

    I do take exception, however, to just how incredibly lazy some of you are.

    Firstly, I think it goes without saying that “If you liked x, you’ll love y” is not a review. It barely qualifies as a comparison. Telling me that I’ll love Watchmen because I think The Dark Knight is brilliant? That’s rubbish, and it’s easy-to-write rubbish because they happen to fall into the same genre. I know people who love Notting Hill but absolutely detest Love Actually. There are more than plenty of people out there who adore Lord of the Rings but cannot stand Harry Potter (and no, I don’t care what you say – they are the same genre). If I were your Editor-in-Chief, I would dock your wages for telling me that y is good because it happens to share some familiar elements with x.

    This goes double for “it’s x meets y“. That’s not a review. That’s a pitch. You don’t have to pitch the film to me, you just have to tell me what you thought of it. If your thought was “it’s x meets y” then your opinion is, I think, far too limited to deserve being paid for.

    Finally, and this is perhaps the most important point, there is no such thing as a “popcorn movie”. It doesn’t exist. Nobody, and I mean nobody goes to the theatre to sit there and just eat the popcorn. Describing any film (a recent example being X-Men Origins: Wolverine) as a “popcorn movie” is non-committal, time-wasting bollocks. The film is either worth seeing or it isn’t, and if the best you can muster in the review is thoughts on the concessions then the film probably isn’t worth seeing. I can stay at home and eat much nicer popcorn for far less the expense.

    Please think about this the next time you get to see a movie for free so you can write about it.

    Kind regards,
    Ben Paddon

  • An open letter to Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

    Dear SCEE UK Press team,

    Congratulations on the announcement of a new SOCOM game for your PlayStation Portable console. I’m sure you’re very pleased to have greenlit yet another title in the remarkably popular military tactical warfare series.

    Might I suggest, however, that regardless of just how much you may well be swelling with pride, it probably isn’t necessary to send me no less than eight identical emails in the space of a few hours informing me of the announcement. Especially when I’ve expressed virtually no interest in this game or, indeed, any other game in the SOCOM series.

    Thank you for your time.

    With regards,
    Ben Paddon