VSX, A shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist: Starbuck Powersurge - a young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of Viper Squad Ten, a long-disbanded group of stranded timetravelling troubadours, formed to help finance repairs to their time-machine. Now very much stuck in C21...

Sometimes guest editors: Mr Stu and DJ Tim.

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[ Friday, December 29, 2006 ]

Well, its been a relatively abstentious Christmas break, thanks to the intervention of Tesco.

A couple of their Cold Relief capsules on top of an empty stomach on Christmas morning saw to that. Empty that is aside from the remnants of Christmas Eve's Speckled Hen and Bomber County swilling around my gastric pits.

Still, a clamped-up stomach's an effective way of stopping one eating and drinking too much. Ugh.

Hope that you all had a good one too.

And with that, may I offer you a personal digest of the televisual treats which on offer over the festive season, as Christmas is a time for children and for the BBC.

Eastenders - I missed Pauline Fowler's departure from this world, which is a shame, as I very much wanted to see the back of the old goat. Eastenders always gets very surreal over Christmas, with freak weather patterns, dreamlike theatrics, and bizarre characterisation, which makes it all the more fun.

Doctor Who - again, I missed the Christmas special, though my nephew has told me all about it. It was good, apparently. [I know that this festive review's not going too well, but hopefully it'll pick up soon when I get to something I've seen]

The Ruby In The Smoke - well, I missed Doctor Who, but I saw the Beeb's adaptation of Philip Pullman's novel starring Rose Tyler Billie Piper. Found it difficulting switching off from her Roseness, though, not helped by her appalling put-on accent making it sound as if Rose had gone back in time and was attempting to fit in, badly. Not to say that she was bad, just bad accented. Very much enjoyed it, though, even if my stupidity meant that I had to keep rewinding to remind myself what the hell was going on.

Dracula - another top BBC adaptation, but again slightly tainted by my inability to remove the key character (Count Dracula) from the actor playing him - this time, Marc Warren from Hustle, whom I spent the whole running time thinking he was Neil Stuke from 1990s flat-share sitcom Game On, and as such kept expecting him to start ranting about "ginger tosser Martin".

Torchwood - hmmm, the festively-dressed episode happened a few weeks back now, and closer to Christmas all of the Xmas decorations had disappeared. Must be something to do with time travel. Or the fact that "there's something in the darkness" coming for Captain Jack... [Jack Harkness... Justin Hawkins... The Darkness... there must be a connection...]

And that's that. And after that I tet you're so looking forward to my festive Film and Music Annual Review...

[ Friday, December 22, 2006 ]

# It's going to be a Raka Staka Christmas,
To prevent your bottles from having a roll
Presents hangin' from the tree
You'll never guess what you've got from me... #

Oh. It's a RakaStaka.

[ Thursday, December 21, 2006 ]

Christmas. It's great, isn't it. Everything'a great, that is, apart from sprouts (aside from my mother-in-laws sprouts, which strangely are the only sprouts I've ever liked).

If you feel the same, and you should, you should practice their avoidance via the Attack of the Sprouts webgame.

There. That's better, isn't it.

[ Wednesday, December 20, 2006 ]

[ Wednesday, December 13, 2006 ]

[ Tuesday, December 12, 2006 ]

[ Monday, December 11, 2006 ]

"If the Government wants to make things more difficult for the terrorists, they have to involve the public in a constructive way. Otherwise warnings like this are nothing but hollow rhetoric.

"Where are the efforts to advise people on what to do in the event of an attack, or what to look out for to help prevent one?

"Where are the instruction posters on the Tube in London? Where are the new radios to allow the emergency services to communicate underground?

"Knowledge dispels fear, but John Reid is giving us fear with no knowledge."

'Mr Mercer also voiced concerns that ministers are using repeated warnings of impending attacks partly to 'soften up' public opinion for the introduction of more sweeping counter-terrorism powers, including another attempt to introduce 90-day detention without charge for suspects in terrorist cases.'

Visuals Incredibly Pisspoor Exceptional Riting, Solid Questioning Unless Articulating Dafticity, The End's Nigh

[ Friday, December 08, 2006 ]

That's the increasingly loud message that we hear from that particular Abrahamic religion each year. Just earlier this week there was a Bishop (not Harold, unfortunately) urging the nation not to take the Christ out of Christmas.

And he's damn right. Taking the "Christ" out of "Christmas" would leave us with "mas", which let's face it is way too ambiguous.

As a cynical old unbeliever on a one way ticket to hell, I'd much rather we took the "Chris" out of Christmas (but not Little (Lil) Chris; I like him.) That'd certainly remove the uncomfortable religious aspect that I find rather taints my Christmas fun(buying Christmas tree decorations without any representation of stars whatsoever is tricky - is a bauble a star?)

And it would leave us with "tmas", which rolls off the tongue better than "mas".

No, wait... "t" looks a bit like a cross, and then we're back in Xmas territory. Oops

Bugger. I'd vowed not to piss off my religious readers this year. Well, I'm sure they can take it. They're the ones with the faith. [And just to prove how good I am, I'll save my contentious "BUT" for the Comments box (look beyond if you dare...)]

Still, having been administered the religious rite of confirmation before turning to the Dark Side, I'm ecclesiastically allowed to take the Chris.



Incidentally, I was interested to see a piece in the Guardian today ("The Phoney War On Christmas", about the media's reporting on the so-called War Against Xmas. As is so very predictable, all of these stories relating to "political correctness gone mad" that flood our rotten media outlets each winter are not quite what they seem. Upon examination they turn out to be lies, prompted by lazy and dishonest journalism, or propaganda being spread by religious pressure groups for their own nefarious purposes.

When will we learn, I ask thee?

If I was a Christian I'd be mightily pissed off with the lot of them for using my religion as a subversive tool. Then again, if I was a Christian, knowing me I'd probably be an Evangelical, eager for that sweet neuropharmalogical hit from the potential conversion possibilities...

[ Monday, December 04, 2006 ]

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