Wednesday, June 27, 2007

RIP Tony Blair, as PM, at any rate.

















Here richly, with ridiculous display

The Politician's corpse was laid away.
While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged
I wept. For I had longed to see him hanged.

Saturday, June 23, 2007

I thought I had better say it before someone else does

There's is an awkward clash on the TV schedules tonight. On one channel at 7PM there's a programme about an evil meglomaniac who gets himself elected prime minister for his own nefarious purposes, while at the same time on the other side it's "Doctor Who".

normal service will be resumed as soon as possible

my modem exploded during the thunderstorms

while probably no-one else has said this in the entire history of the universe, Talktalk customer support were extremely helpful and efficient...

Friday, June 15, 2007

In case you didn't hear it, this week's "Clue" included not one but two of the rudest (and cleverest) jokes ever exhibited on the BBC.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

If Hilary Clinton were to become president of the U.S.A, Dave Sim's head would explode.

Surely, for that reason alone, it is worth doing.

Monday, June 11, 2007

"And I was like 'something, something, something', innit?"

Overheard in college library.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Nice Things (4)

1: Wagner, Gotterdamerung, Act III Scene 2 "Brunnhilde, heilige Braut"/funeral march

2: Wagner, Die Walkure, Act III Scene 1 "Fort denn eile, nach Osten gerwandt..."

3: Bob Dylan,"When the Ship Comes In."

4: Lennon-McCartney "I Am the Walrus."

5: Woody Guthrie: "Grand Coulee Dam"

6: Loesser, "Luck Be A Lady"

7: Boublil/Schoenbeg "Javert's Suicide"

8: Mike Batt "Remember You're a Womble."

Record: Wagner, Gotterdamerung

Book: The Silmarillion

Luxury: Teapot, tea, kettle, cow. Tea making facilities

Daily Express reader in "a bit right wing" shock

Unless it is a very complex piece of foreshadowing for the next Doctor Who story but one, I suppose.

Monday, June 04, 2007

Nice Things (3)

I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue is back on Radio 4. (If that link doesn't lead to the current episode, then you can usually find an old one here.)

Can you believe that Humphrey Lyttleton is 86? (I believe that, if you care about such things, which I admit I don't, he pretty much functions as a walking history of jazz.) I realize that we long ago came to accept Desert Island Discs without Roy Plumley and we have even come around to the idea of world without Alistair Cooke, but I fear that sooner or later Humph is going to...retire....whereapon the ravens will fly away from the Tower of London, the licence fee will be abolished, and England like Numenor will sink beneath the waves.

Blah blah blah, improvisational comedy; blah, blah, blah, last vestige of music hall tradition; blah, blah, blah, both precursor and descendant of Monty Python and The Goodies; blah blah blah, very rude jokes.

I used to know the technical word for the grammatical construction where you say "precursor and descendant of" where strictly one ought to say "precursor to and descendant of". I want it to be "sylepsis", but that's believing you are the only person in the whole world. It's not a useful word, I admit, but I was pleased when I discovered it existed, and now I have lost it, like Pooh and his honey and the cheese. I digress.

Very rude jokes.

Define "Countryside".
"The act of killing Piers Morgan."

But mostly very silly jokes.

Complete the following well known phrase or expression:

"It takes two to..."
"...to be the Archbishop of Cape Town". "

As mad as a March..."
"....on Baghdad."

From time to time, Gordon starts to worry about what it means to be English. If he listened to Clue, he would know the answer. (Which raises the question: if he doesn't listen to Clue, what business does he have running the country? Neil Kinnock was a big fan.)


There is a blue plaque to Willie Rushton on Mornington Crescent tube station.

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Spider-Man 3

Spider-Man is an odd character. Little kids wear Spider-Man tee-shirts and play with Spider-Man toys, but you could hardly imagine a less kid-friendly hero. The comic book is full of angst and misery: Peter Parker's family and friends keep getting murdered, the world thinks he's a baddie – being a Spider-Man has pretty much ruined his life. The movies are just as depressing -- although director Sam Raimi did bottle-out and give Spider-Man 2 a happy ending.

The most depressing thing about Spider-Man 3 is how familiar it all feels. The last time we saw them Peter Parker (Tobey McGuire) and his frequently-kidnapped girl friend Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) had settled their difficulties and fallen in love -- but someone has pushed the 're-set' button on their relationship. So we have to go through the angst and slush all over again: another scene in a theatre; another break-up in a restaurant, and, once again, M.J running from Peter into the arms of his best mate Harry Osborne (James Franco). This is even more angsty than usual because Harry is moonlighting as the villainous Green Goblin, a role left vacant by his father since the first movie. There are also scenes in which Aunt May (Rosemary Harris) dispenses wise advise, scenes in which newspaper editor J. Jonah Jameson (J.K Simmons) loses his cool -- all pretty much encores of the first two films. Marvel Comics has been churning out arachnid adventures on a monthly basis for 40 years, but it seems that, after only three movies, Spider-Man has got tired.

Peter Parker has discovered a snazzy new black spider suit, which turns out to be a parasitic E.T which needs human host. While he is wearing the new suit, he behaves in depressingly un-heroic ways: kissing new girlfriends in front of M.J, mercilessly killing bad guys and, worst of all, doing nerdy dances in night-clubs. But the film can't decide whether it's a morality play about choosing between your dark side and your ... err.... red and blue side, or whether it is a simple horror story in which the hero is possessed by an evil space alien. In the end, Spider-Man doesn't come back to the light because he makes the right moral choice, but simply because he finds a comic-book cop-out which lets him rip the costume off. It then forms a symbiotic relationship with a rival news photographer (Topher Grace) creating a new villain, Venom, who Spider-Man defeats in a big fight. The greatest battle is within? Not really.

The third villain, Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), feels like an afterthought. The first two movies gave their bad-guys extensive back-stories -- this one takes it for granted that when escaped convicts wander into nuclear experiments, they turn into a walking, talking piles of sand. Sandman had a hand in killing Peter Parker's uncle, but on the plus side he only turned to crime because of his terminally ill daughter. This feels like a good idea for a story, rather than a properly developed element in the film.

The multi-villain action sequences are as spectacular as you'd expect; and everyone acts a lot, even in the embarrassing slushy bits. But it doesn't have the moral conviction or the emotional heart of the earlier films.

How depressing.