- Viper Squad Ten -

Dexter Season 4 finale review

2010-11-05T10:39:00.002Z

Its interesting how a series about the life of a self-managing serial killer can make me weep for the protagonist.

As the episode drew to a close, and Dexter discovered that SPOILER had SPOILER his SPOILER and left his SPOILER SPOILER in a SPOILER of SPOILER, I found myself lost in uncontrollable tears.

Nothing has made me cry so much in a long long time.

FOOTNOTE:

I watched it "on demand" without interruptions, then later re-watched bits of a recorded version of the linear broadcast. I'll stick to OD in the future.

FX UK's use of non-signposted ad breaks and REALLY FLICKING ANNOYING VOICEOVERS AND PREVIEWS over the end credits made me want to weep all over again (in much the same way that they made the linear broadcast version of True Blood unwatchable). FX used to be good! When will they learn?

Now that's magic!

2010-10-14T17:23:00.006+01:00

I always thought there was something suspicious about that hair...

Inception

2010-07-28T15:55:00.000+01:00

As a result of events both foreseen and unforeseen, until this weekend I'd not been to the cinema in over 3 years. Therefore you could treat this brief review with the same condescension that you would use when discovering that a time-travelled Victorian gentleman has viewed his first colour TV programme only to find that he was watching Chucklevision, but there you go.

So anyway, Inception: Brilliant! Disappointed to see that the popcorn prannocks are still populating cinemas, but the film was engrossing enough for me to ignore their perpetual rustling.

Review over.

For a film about dreams its certainly invigorated my own. Everything's been so much more vivid! Just this morning I grasped memories from my waking sleep whereby I said to Starbucketta (co-star of this dream) that "I am the architect of this dream, we can do whatever we want in it", before shutting the curtains on the living room and changing its whole parameters. But you don't want to know about that!

Buy anyway, I used to have dreams where anything could happen no matter how dangerous without any prospect of "very bad things" happening (death, for example), the reasoning being that within my dreamworld I was in an incredibly realistic computer game. Game Over? Continue.

Inception should further broaden my parameters!

I did this!

2010-07-05T19:00:00.000+01:00

BBC Trust rejects 6 Music closure plan

Frank Sidebottom RIP

2010-06-22T15:19:00.003+01:00

The light of my eternal childlike essence has dimmed.

One of my favourite Glastonbury moments, no, one of my favourite EVER moments, was watching Frank Sidebottom perform to a mixed-bag crowd in the haze of the comedy tent, half of them sitting there in open-mouthed bemusement, the other half transfixed in open-mouthed wonder. A lot of open mouths. Or perhaps that was just something to do with the overall Glastonbury festival "atmosphere".

If there was a heaven it would look like the set of Remote Control, Frank Sidebottom and Tony Wilson sitting on the cloud belonging to Gilbert-the-Alien's-voice.

Which is nice.

Lost - The End - an atheist's viewpoint

2010-05-26T13:13:00.002+01:00

I thought that the finale was an excellent piece of television, right up until they all met in the church above Eloise Hawking's Lamp Post Dharma station, at which point my immediate reaction was horror, then disappointment.

As a proud and sensible atheist I had always feared they were going to go with some sort of lame afterlife / purgatory / limbo explanation (though to go along with the fun of fantasy shows like Lost you have to suspend your disbelief anyway - it never hurt with Ashes to Ashes for example)

But then I reconciled myself with the fact that it was only the "flash-sideways" timeline that is (potentially) heaven's waiting room - everything else that had happened on the island and in seasons 1-5 having taken place exactly as we've seen it; and that Christian Shephard presumably only said what he'd said because he'd been told it. One thing that the series has kept on reiterating is how people will hold on to (and impart onto others) whatever beliefs they have been told, however nonsensical they might be - remember how certain Richard Alpert had been that they were all in hell, simply because Jacob's brother had told him so. And although Desmond appears to know everything that will happen (and in every timeline he exists in) up until his death, again if he's trapped within the confines of his experiences and beliefs then he wouldn't know any better either - he's seen what would happen, so he will work to make it happen.

Although I'd be comfortable within the parameters of the show with the Budhist idea of the survivors going through the door in the church and rebooting in another plane of existence where they would be one level better, I still think that still just a little too obvious.

I "believe" that those who went through the door would simply cease to exist in that dimension, or perhaps with fragments (quanta) of their existence echoing off another Them in another dimension - maybe at a key point (such as when Jughead exploded, or at the time of the Incident when Desmond failed to push the button, or even at any of the many point when the island jumped between positions in time and/pr space). Maybe they would just cease to be.

Or potentially it might return them to the island at some point in the past or future - lets not forget after all that the church was built over a pocket of electromagenetic radiation, and that all these pockets, including the one under the island, are linked.)

This might be a long time in the future in a dimension where the plug remained in place to constrain the island's source, long after the immortals Hurley and Ben had passed on, or possibly the very distant past. It could even be at some point before the island's conquerers - presumably the Ancient Egyptians, though lets not forget the possibilities that time travel, teleportation, and misdirection can allow - had corked the island's power (and lets not forget, this was to retain rather than restrain) - geological upheavals may have somehow created a natural plug.

But whatever. Eloise knew. Whether they would cease to exist, or whether they would return to a dimension where her son would cease to exist, she knew.

Desmond, had once more been conned, and from there so had the others.

Push the button.

Viper Squad Ten - the return

2010-05-25T17:18:00.002+01:00

# You'd better watch out you gits, 'cos Starbuck's back
The Squad have been quiet, but we're on the attack... #

And that.

Hmmm. I'd not meant to fall off the map quite so spectacularly. This blog has still been fully functional in my mind - its just not quite made the crucial transition from my brain to Google's servers. I've planned so many "comeback" posts over the last two years. Some of them would have been rather wonderful. And now, here I am, talking to myself absentmindedly, unfocussed, just myself and the bots reading these ill-formed words.

Still its nice to see that old green-brown eyestrain-inducing page template again. I've missed that - an antique from the days before CSS, whether you're talking cascading style sheets or Cansei de Ser Sexy.

For the dwindled audience of those who still care, its not that I've been totally disconnected from blogging over the last few years. Like every other self-publicist I've got myself a Twitter account - http://twitter.com/StarbuckPSurge. As you can see, there's been markedly more activety there than here. A whole posting from last year, for example.

But mark these words (and try to score me highly), Isle be back (Arnie's favourite island).

[breath drawn]

2008-09-03T20:57:00.001+01:00

I AM ALIVE!

[rib cage expands outwards]

2008-09-03T20:56:00.001+01:00

[intercostal muscles contract]

2008-09-03T20:55:00.000+01:00

[Diaphragm creaks downwards]

2008-09-03T20:49:00.001+01:00

Come back

2008-06-04T20:14:00.003+01:00

Hello. How are you?

My name's Starbuck, and I've been very quiet of late.

It's my throat you see. I can't make too much noise.

I've been feeling a little horse.

Co incidents

2008-03-25T19:44:00.002Z

Talking of coincidence, I'm obviously feeling low level guilt about neglecting my online duties of late. Ideas spill from my brimming head and are lost in the mists of memory, one taut timeline amongst many stretched to breaking point.

I dreamt last night about third daughter. I can't recall what it was now, but no doubt I was checking her blog to see how life was shaping up, something I should be doing for her and for many others. So much must be happening in others' lives, so much to care about. I wish someone would invent Really Simple Syndication. Others' lives might not even be accessible now. So much has been happening in my own life, so much to share from my new life - from Starkid's life.

And today, by another coincidence, the morning after the dream, threed contacted me through Flickr to comment on a photo of Starkid.

I know that coincidence doesn't mean anything, I know that its just the human mind that makes it appear more than it should be, I know that our reality is purely a mental construct, that the present is not even something that is happening but is actually something that has happened and is then reflected upon, I know all that...

... but its still great fun!

More precognonsense

2008-03-25T19:28:00.002Z

Further to THAT, I've managed to precog another high profile death - Arthur C Clarke. Sort of. Well, more of a postcog really, with a bit of paracog as well.

I was lieing in the Bath Friday morning, unaware of the passing of the classic sf author. I was thinking about a piece of music, tying to work out where it was from. I thought it was from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Until I realised that it was from Superman.

A bit later I was watching the film version of the Magic Roundabout, where another piece from the 2001 soundtrack was used. "Hmmm, coincidence", I thought absently.

Late that night I was flicking channels and happened across Damages, just as the Blue Danube was being played. "Wooh" I thought, inaccurately.

The next day I learned the truth.

Clarke was dead. And I was suffering from coincidence and extrapolation
again.

Yeah© - infringement by MLC Ritchie

2008-03-25T19:11:00.002Z

That new Madonna single, right? 4 Minutes To Save The World - the one that sounds a bit like The Final Countdown? Or was it Brian May's theme to Star Fleet#? Or does that sound like The Feeling's Thought It Was Over (as I always think to myself upon hearing it)?

Whatever, that Madonna single. The "yeah" in it. It absolutely rips off the "yeah" in Dieticians Featuring Fat's breakthrough track Fat City Arizona, both in tone and word-for-word.

I want royalties.

# Having just revisited Mr Anita Dobson's classic theme tune, evidently not. Check it out puppet fans...

2008-03-06T17:59:00.002Z

Hmmm, so much for the big VSX comeback.

Short, is time, yes.

So here's one that I made earlier. Or rather, here's one that MIA Co-editor Stu made earlier. Or even, here's something he emailed me.

Just as well, since I can't see myself getting round to my annual music & film review for 2007, considering my 2006 review only came out in September, and since I've not really absorbed much music or film in 2007 anyway.

So.

Here's Stu:

Best singles

Manic Street Preachers - Your love alone is not enough (I'm sorry but I really like this song)

Andrew Thompson - What's up

Klaxons - Golden Skans

Scroobius pip - Thou shalt always kill

Best albums - in order at least to begin with

Battles

Arcade Fire

Radiohead

Queens of the Stone Age

Everything Jesu has done this year (and ever forever)

Band of Horses

65 days of static

Maps

Bloc Party

Editors

Also rans

Nine Inch Nails, Broken Family Band, Klaxons

Best album that I had never heard until this year (so to me it is an album of the year, yeah?)

Slint Spiderland

Most rubbishly disappointing album of the year

Interpol

(Chemical Brothers came close)

Best gig

The whole Barcelona "experience", Tool at Brixton, Battles at Koko

Most irritating musical person of the year

Jack Penate

I hope that you've found that edifying.

Robot Wars on Terror

2008-03-05T22:21:00.002Z

You may have seen news fluttering across the news wire recently that Professor Noel Sharkey PhD DSc FIEE FBCS CITP FRIN FRSA, Professor of Arificial Intelligence and Robotics, Professor of Public Engagement and EPSRC Senior Media Fellow at the University of Sheffield had been publicising his concerns that terrorists might start using robots to carry out their atrocities.

Well he would say that. The man has a vested interest - Prof S was a judge on the UK version of Robot Wars, for chrissakes. He's obviously missing his fix of BREAK FLUID!!!!!!

Still looking for Osama Bin Laden? Send in Sir Killalot! Need reinforcements against "Al-Qaeda In Iraq"? Send in Hypnodisc, send in Razer, Cassius & Chaos 2.

Tony Blair was right. The world truly has changed. Where's Rex Garrard when you need him?

Moc-moc-a-moc

2008-02-22T15:14:00.001Z

Welcome Back [Sychic Starbuck]

2008-01-31T14:48:00.000Z

I've been mentally drafting various "VSX comeback" posts since Christmas now, occasionally punching reminder notes onto my phone when something suitably momentous came to mind. Despite my absence its never been far from my mind.

I'd been meaning to tell you what I've been up to, to reveal in glorious detail the wonderful happenings that have prevented me from coming near this blog.

A hundred and one witticisms have crossed my cortex, but not got as far as my fingers.

But I hadn't reckoned on returning with the following words:

I precognised Jeremy Beadle's death.

Last night. I dreampt about it, hours before first hearing the sad news about Beadlebum.

Or rather, I dreampt about Radio 1 DJ Colin Murray's death (in remembrance the radio station had removed all music and chat from the schedules, leaving just half-hour news bulletins within a sea of silence).

And I happened to catch a few minutes of the ex-R.I.S.E. presenter's show last night whilst washing the dishes, during which he talked about the prank TV shows of yesteryear.

And of course, the small-handed tidy-bearded brainiac Beadlebum was the best TV prankster there ever was!

Coincidence? Selection bias? Pah! Enough of this guff. See you next time / next year.

Starkid Smell

2007-12-11T20:27:00.001Z

I realised something special at work today.

Although I am unable to properly imagine most smells (presumably my other stronger senses have more bearing on my world and drown out my olfactory imagination), I am fully able to imagine the smell of new baby Starkid when I am apart from him.

He should think himself privileged!

Starkid Smile

2007-12-11T20:19:00.000Z

OK, I know I've not been around these parts much of late, and when I have its been on a strictly functional basis (I've got too much on right now, aside from when I'm in the bath), but for the record, and as a Christmas present to any stray Powersurge pals out there (New Years resolution will be to look y'all up), I bring you a special treat - a photo of Starkid's first proper smiling session...

A wonderful feeling!

Ravey Baby

2007-11-21T20:36:00.000Z

Baby Powersurge's new favourite record - the Bandulu remix of U.F.Orb.

It gets him waving his arms around like its 1992!

Incidentally, I'm finding myself becoming influenced by his Starkid sounds - I've started cooing when I'm occupied with something!

Christian Voice

2007-11-21T19:42:00.000Z

I hate these guys, especially bigot-in-chief Stephen Green. Why the media gives them the time of day I don't know (here they are again, wanting to sue the BBC for blasphemy in screening Jerry Springer The Opera, one of their pet obsessions.)

I hate them for their hatred (one of the few forms of hatred I understand). Their hatred of anyone who doesn't share to the letter their closed-minded world view, forged in a literal interpretation of a document written thousands of years ago.

You just need to look at their site to see the bile they pour out, spewing misinformed reaction to the world that they rightly see as being at odds with them, against them. If you look beyond the poorly-written text you'll see some very questionable opinions.

Censure the Beeb for blasphemy? When we can't even censure moronic religious bigots?

The impression one gets from the media are that CV are the mainstream pressure group for fundamentalist Christianity in this country. They grant them the respectability that they badly crave.

Don't think I'm picking on Christianity here - there are pressure groups and hate campaigns cosseting the insecurities of all the main religions. Its just that, in this "Christian country", Christian Voice get free reign to broadcast their hate.

Radio 1 news

2007-11-18T13:31:00.000Z

Thank Christ the BBC got rid of JK and Joel, 2-DJs-in-one who are not fit to broadcast on the "nations favourite" national radio station.

No wit, no discernible interest in music, no redeeming radio features.

So what the flip were they playing at employing Dick and Dom - 2-DJs-in-one who are not fit to broadcast on the "nations favourite" national radio station.

No wit, no discernible interest in music, no redeeming radio features. And really fucking annoying in that jarringly blunt, soft-agressive style, especially since they both obviously think they're the funniest double act since, oh, Ant and Dec. I guess they put them on the radio for "the kids". Well, the kids should rise up and protest.

In the words of Scaramanga, there's a four letter word and they're full of it. In spades.

Global Warning

2007-11-18T13:17:00.000Z

Despite what right-wing deniers of man-made climate change deniers might claim (and it is always right-wingers, such as a local Conservative MPwho thinks its all a socialist conspiracy, Jeremy Clarkson having a dig on screen at the end of Top Gear's four-wheel drive to the North Pole - if they can drive there then obviously the ice caps are OK and there's not substantive evidence to global warming -, or one of my in-laws whose suspicions are fed by every morsel of selective misinformation fed to him by the Telegraph), the scary thing is that there isn't anything we can likely to as a planet's population to stop it. We know we're in for trouble, and each nation is going to do its best to safeguard its interests for the future, and sod the rest of them.

They've known about it since the 70s, but given that they've not wanted to here, denial has been the easiest option.

If only 80s thrash metal combo Nuclear Assault had declared independence from the rest of the world and declared their own country - NuAssland, perhaps. Then they might have played their magnum opus Global Warning in full at one of the security council meetings, and the world would be a better place.

Review: The Mighty Boosh - S3E1 - Eels

2007-11-18T12:40:00.000Z

Godarnit, why did they have to bring back the Moon from series 2?

Aside from that, business as usual. Inspired surreal comic brilliance, or childish comic fantasy, depending on your point of view. I'm very much in the former camp, and if you don't agree, you know nothing of the crunch!

However, having been weaned on the DVDs of the first two series, watching on telly just wasn't the same without Barratt, Fielding and Fulcher's commentary track...

Hilarious soundalike

2007-11-13T20:19:00.000Z

It's with good reason that Starbuck Powersurge is famous for his hilarious soundalikes. So here's another one.

My car.

And the start of Madness' "Driving In My Car".

Hilarious. Grumble.

Baby in a Basket

2007-11-04T16:00:00.000Z

Ah, that's better. Sorry for that bandwidth-draining p h o t o s p l urge - its been such a rollercoaster of a year that I felt the need to found some positive anchors within this chronicle. Or something.

No wait, there's another one coming.

Enough. Back to the baby stuff.

It's been an interesting time getting used to our newly-expanded family, and I can now appreciate just how different this is to anything else I've experienced. It's a little bit more complicated than keeping a tamagotchi alive.

Its become apparent that I'm alot more used to needy canines than infant human beings. And I can't stop speaking to poor Starkid as if he's a little doggy!

I talk about "putting him in his basket", or "putting him down on his mat" - I'm sure it won't be long before I'm sternly telling him to go "On your mat" in deep commanding voice with a biscuit in hand.

One step further than calling him a "good boy", I even accidentally said "there's a good dog" earlier...

Crap

2007-11-01T22:29:00.001Z

Toilet Door Notice, originally uploaded by Starbuck Powersurge.

Photo Flashback 9

2007-11-01T22:23:00.001Z

The Greek Theatre above Taormina, originally uploaded by Starbuck Powersurge.

Photo Flashback 8

2007-11-01T22:22:00.001Z

Mount Etna, originally uploaded by Starbuck Powersurge.

Photo Flashback 7

2007-11-01T22:21:00.001Z

Above the Villa Romana di Patti, originally uploaded by Starbuck Powersurge.

Photo Flashback 6

2007-11-01T22:20:00.001Z

Break, originally uploaded by Starbuck Powersurge.

Photo Flashback 5

2007-11-01T22:19:00.001Z

Cefalù - town/sea interface, originally uploaded by Starbuck Powersurge.

Photo Flashback 4

2007-11-01T22:16:00.001Z

Sicilian sunset, originally uploaded by Starbuck Powersurge.

Photo Flashback 3

2007-11-01T22:15:00.001Z

Sicily - Aeolian Islands 10, originally uploaded by Starbuck Powersurge.

Photo Flashback 2

2007-11-01T22:12:00.001Z

Summer Floodin' Happened So Fast, originally uploaded by Starbuck Powersurge.

Photo Flashback 1

2007-11-01T22:08:00.001Z

Defeat of the Triffids, originally uploaded by Starbuck Powersurge.

Infant Music

2007-10-24T14:44:00.000+01:00

One of the unexpected joys of new parenthood is the escape from social conventions about spouting nonsense in a loud voice. Freshly released from the shackles adulthood, I have been thoroughly enjoying the freedom to sing absolute tosh whenever the need arises. And Starkid's hopefully enjoying it too.

The subject matter of my current Top Five ditties are as follows:

Serial Killers
Uncle Vernon Kay
Alexei Sayle, and how we love to see him swear on the TV
Daddy's Bottom
Captain Kirk

Obviously the Wiggles have got nothing on me for lyrics. Next stop, the Dieticians featuring Fat and Viper Squad Ten back-catalogues...

Coming up with these tunes on the fly, it becomes apparent just what a piece of piss the act of composition for kids entertainers must be. Very embarrassing when you find yourself out and about singing merrily about Fred and Rose or Uncle Vernon coming from Bolton, though!

The Powersurge Family grows by 8 pounds

2007-10-15T23:22:00.000+01:00

Welcome, Starkid!

Popular Music Soundalikes

2007-10-09T18:04:00.000+01:00

A good one. Followed by a bad one.

Subject: Rapper Maxi Jazz during the "verses" of 1995 Faithless song "Insomnia".

Soundalike: William Hague.

Subject: modern Muse (generally speaking)

Soundalike: - Yngwie J Malmsteen's Rising Force . Just a little tiny bit. But in a good way. It that's possible.

Wii-brained

2007-10-06T17:35:00.000+01:00

And talking of the Nintendo Wii, surely I'm not the only idiot to have gotten himself into an almost disastrous mess by mistaking the concept of the SD card with SanDisk branded memory sticks?

I was convinced that my Wii's memory card reader component had somehow been built into the unit the wrong way round at manufacture. I had studied the diagrams in the manual and on the help screen, and despite the fact it was clear from the picture that the external SD card should be inserted with the notched corner facing forward at the bottom, the only way I could get it to click into place correctly was with the notch at the top. That said, I spent ages poking it around with the notch down trying to get the device recognised, but (a) it didn't obviously "spring" into place, (b) I needed tweezers to get it out each time, and (c) it didn't work. And within the Save Data option within the Data Management option, the system was adamant that there "Nothing is inserted in the SD Card Slot". Adamant, but not willing to stand and deliver.

Most gutted was I, since I've got a 4GB SanDisk memory stick for my old Sony Ericsson k750i that's stuffed full of tunes and "stuff".

You don't need an external memory card for the Wii, of course - the onboard memory is quite sufficient for game saves and downloads. But I wanted it bad.

I rang up the games emporium from whence I'd bought the unit, and Justin Lee Collins (or at least is sounded like Justin Lee Collins) got tremendously frothed up with excitement about the prospect of taking a look at it - he'd not heard of anything similar ever happening, and couldn't really comprehend how such a mistake might have happened at the factory. And surely it wasn't possible spatially...? So I agreed to take it in the next day - as it was under warrantee I'd get a replacement machine

Late that night I was idly swimming around the internet, slightly suspicious of the evident lack of similar problems that bastard-boring-bloggers might have written about in a fit of grumpiqueness, but mostly trying to put off the moment when I would factory-reset the Wii in order to remove any personal data (along with my precious Zelda save data). And lo - what everyone else already knows:

SD stands for Secure Digital - nothing to do with SanDisk (although they do manufacture them).
SD cards and Sony's proprietary format, the Memory Stick Pro Duo are not interchangeable - they are entirely different formats, no matter that there are SanDisk branded sticks on the market.
I am incredibly stupid. I've just realised I researched all this when I was originally looking to expand my phone's memory. And then promptly forgot all about it. Memory problems.
Reading about memory is boring. As it writing it on this blog. Which is why it has been drafted at work.

Fin.

Ninetendo Months

2007-09-24T19:24:00.000+01:00

And talking of 9 months, a life-changing occurrence is about to sweep through my world.

HAL-9000: What's going to happen?

In the words of Dave Bowman in 2010, "Something wonderful".

So, with an impending lack of free time bearing down on me (even more so than recently), what does Starbuck do?

He buys a Nintendo Wii along with The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

Ulp.

2006 film & music roundup

2007-09-19T19:00:00.000+01:00

And talking of music, for the last nine months or so I've been meaning to publish the following already-much-delayed "cultural review of 2006" (though co-editor Stu's Music Round Up got there first, and much more conclusively.)

Top Two Albums

TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain

Excudes the same warmth and quality as pre-Neon Bible Arcade Fire. Brilliant.

Plan B - Who Needs Actions When You Got Words

Vital. Intelligent. Lyrically raw and horribly visceral. Best British album of 2006? Certainly best British rap album. And possibly internationally...

What Eminem might sound like if he came from East London, was a better musician, hadn't married Kim, and didn't feel the need to piss people off with juvenility as a weapon.

Real name Ben Drew, which sounds a bit like Ben Dover.

Top Two Films

Pan's Labyrinth

Children of Men

Aww, I was going to review these when they came out at the cinema, a whole bleedin' year ago. I keyed in hundreds of characters-worth of text message notes to myself on my mobile after each one, in readiness for sharing my joy, my wonderment, my excitement. I would type up some reviews, however you'll have seen them both by now, of course. And if you haven't, you really really should. Trust me on this one. Don't trust me on anything else. Just this.

[ADDENDUM]

One CD which I really should have mentioned was "Joanna Newsom - Ys".

I'm sure I had a periphrastic review of this wonderful album just waiting in my drafts, but the following will have to do:

Mesmerising and life-affirming. Beautiful, and incredibly human. It's helped me through difficult times.

Music musings

2007-09-07T13:15:00.000+01:00

Hello. "Musings", eh? "Musings" - pah! Looks like I'm a "proper blogger" again.

So, what was I going to muse about?

Oh yes, that new Foo Fighters single (it may or may not be called "The Pretender").

Whenever I listen to it, I hear that song from Sesame Street - "One of these kids is doing his own thing, one of these kids is not the same".

It makes me laugh. It makes me cry.

Something else that made me laugh happened last weekend, when Mrs Powersurge had purchased the Radio 1 Live Lounge CD (for those not in the know, its a bunch of tracks that were performed live on a UK radio show, mostly unexpected cover versions).

I came upstairs to find her listening to the final distorted moments of "Gave Up" by Nine Inch Nails. "Hmmm", I hmmm'd to myself, "I wouldn't have expected anyone to cover that on daytime radio. And it sounds exactly the same as the version off the original NIN album "Broken".

How we laughed when I opened up the CD player to find that she'd laid her new album ON TOP OF the one that was already in the machine.

Or rather, how **I** laughed. Ho ho.

Goodbye.

[ADDENDUM] Oops, I had failed to emphasise exactly why this was so funny, funnier even than the end of the first episode of the second series of the IT Crowd, and that's funny.

It was the fact that she'd got all the way to the end of this incredibly noisy aggressive album without noticing anything was amiss.

Do you see? Do you geddit?

Oh, please yerselves.

A promotional ident to drum up viewer interest ahead of the new season on VSX

2007-08-30T23:00:00.000+01:00

Black

2007-08-28T10:59:00.001+01:00

dog

Red

2007-08-28T10:56:00.000+01:00

mist

Signs of Life

2007-08-13T18:14:00.000+01:00

Status: SIS [Starbuck In Stasis]

Activity: Minimal [activation of life-support systems necessisated]

Prognosis/timeline for blog recovery: Good/pending

Areas of recent near-discourse:

Tony Wilson RIP [his best moment, sadly not chronicled on 24 Hour Party People - cheap TV show "Remote Control" - Anthony H Wilson, Frank Sidebottom, that bloke from Dead Ringers who used to be the voice of Gilbert The Alien... you know, the one who used to be Mick Jagger on Steve Wright's pitiful Radio 1 FM show..., whatsisname, Phil... Phil Cornwell - he used to sing "Hey, hey, get off of my cloud"... hold on, heavenly clouds, "Dead" Ringers... rat poisoned pigeons... conspiracy...]

UFOs over Stratford and Bonsall [ale-ien]
Water [floody hell]
Very late cultural review of 2006 [very very]
Some other stuff [and that]

James Nesbitt - the 11th Doctor Who?

2007-08-02T11:48:00.000+01:00

Just seen at the Guardian Organ Grinder blog - "James Nesbitt: the new Doctor Who?" - "James Nesbitt is being lined up as the new Doctor Who, with Steven Moffat taking over as executive producer/showrunner, according to today's Sun".

Ignoring those final four words which automatically makes me take the whole thing with a large pinch of saltpetre, I reckon that Nesbitt would make a pretty good Doctor. Although I've never really liked him that much (I've always found him slightly annoying in interviews, and I've never got on well with his "parts"), I though he was damn good in Moffatt's recent Jekyll, and I can really see it working.

I'd been silently hoping that Moffat would step into Russell T Davies' shoes as well.

Still no sign of Eddie Izzard Doctor, then [VSX 3rd October 2003]. You'll see. Starbuck the Seer's infallibility is unquestioned.

Anyway, who needs pontification, when this is the perfect excuse to run The Timelords' "Doctorin' the TARDIS" video. Enjoy!

Tedcase

2007-07-30T14:25:00.000+01:00

I wonder, is it indicative of a fragile pressurised mindstate that, whilst walking around a shop displaying soft cuddly toys at the weekend, I found myself muttering to myself... "He's a cunt, they're cunts, he looks like a cunt".

But I tell you. They were.

Toys. Stuff them.

OCD joke

2007-07-24T12:16:00.000+01:00

Q: Why did the apiarist clinical psychologist pour an infusion of leaves and buds from the shrub Camellia sinensis through the top of his beehive?

A: Because he wanted to see bee tea! (CBT)

[26TH JULY UPDATE] To atone for the above, I implore you to make at least one one-off £1.50 donation to OCD-UK by texting "OCD" to 84424 (UK) or via their website if you're feeling more generous (or less UK-based).

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Cheap Innuendo

2007-07-20T12:37:00.000+01:00

Having somehow missed out on the whole Harry Potter franchise phenomenon, I've hardly been swept up in all of the chatter about the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Spoiler.

However, I was incredibly excited to recently discover that Jim Dale, star of eleven twenty-ninth of the Carry On film series, reads the audio book version in the States (as opposed to Stephen Fry's dulcet tones for the Brit editions).

Dr Nookey aka the Rumpo Kid doing Potter spoken word? Marvellous casting - after all, he was destined for the role.

Way back in 1966 he played the role of Albert Potter in Carry on Screaming...

Musical Youth

2007-07-17T16:02:00.000+01:00

As an old fuddy-duddy who refuses to go near MySpace and who doesn't have the resources to seek out any decent mp3 blogs, I sometimes worry that whole new exciting musical genres will pass me by, despite my best efforts (i.e. reading the Guardian on a Friday).

What will I say to any future offspring when they start talking about γ-aminobutyric acid braindump trance and I don't have a bleedin' clue what the hell they're on about?

So its nice to have just stumbled across Mary Anne Hobbs' 13th July Radio 1 show on the information superhighroad, only to find that I'm a massive fan of dubstep music. I feel 10 years younger already.

The Al Haca guest mix (aka the Al Haca Family Business Crunchtime Set) was especially tasty. I tried to tell them so as well, but the antispam question was too hard for me. Am I electric?

Whilst you're there, download the free Fightclub mix, 'cos you knows you wants it, toughguy.

TV reviews

2007-07-11T13:23:00.000+01:00

Cape Wrath (Channel 4, Tuesdays)

As a new non-Shameless Channel 4-commissioned UK drama series is quite a rarity nowadays, I thought this would be worth a look. And the first episode was enjoyably intriguing, with every stylised shot built for satisfying viewer consumption.

Yeah, I know the writers desperately want Lost-style mass viewer pontification on what this is really about (blah blah are they actually in limbo or is that just to bleedin' obvious blah blah), however I'm all pontificated out (I'm still suffering from Matrix Theory Exhaustion Syndrome). Though that said, its already premiered on Showtime in the States (as "Meadowlands"), so I'm already stepping around spoilers left, right and centre. And I can't help but wonder whether Meadowlands is, you know, actually an isolated Prisoner-style community actually on, wait for it, Cape Wrath, the most north-westerly part of Scotland. But with better weather. Hmmm. We'll see.

So all in all, not bad at all. C4 need more of this homegrown stuff, especially now that Sky are likely to just buy up any hit "cult" US shows they might want to nurture.

Fonejacker (E4, Thursdays)

Prank calls. Inspired visual accompaniments. Very funny.

"You'll never guess who I had in my funeral car the other week"

2007-07-08T18:24:00.001+01:00

If there's one thing I hate its talking to taxi drivers.

I try to avoid taking taxis, just to get around having to share disinterested chitchat with someone whom I don't know and whom I am overpaying good money to carry out a service and to just let me get on with enjoying my journey.

Its the same as with hairdressers - I enjoy the procedure (it can feel fairly luxurious being pampered), however its the social part that's the problem.

So I was horrified on the afternoon of my Grandma's funeral to find myself in the front passenger seat of the funeral car, sealed in with the driver and away from the safety of family by a soundproof barrier!

I sat there, quiet within the safety of funereal contemplation, feeling fairly safe that I would not be expected to engage in casual conversation with the driver about weather, holidays and immigration. Surely he wouldn't

My worst expectations were confounded, however, when he pulled the rug from under my feet with an attempt at conversation about fire plates. Fire plates! Fire plates? FIRE PLATES!

I muttered indistinctivities under my breath...

[purely as a personal record]

2007-07-08T18:21:00.000+01:00

My reading from my Grandma's funeral

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.

Thinking about my Grandma

2007-07-02T17:58:00.000+01:00

I find that it leaves a very strange feeling when someone you love dies, when the circumstances are that death itself is the least worst thing that can realistically happen to your loved one.

You cannot after all grieve for something that has set them free from their pain or torment.

All you can do is contemplate. Celebrate. Remember.

I'm finding myself drifting off into remembrance quite a lot. It almost feels like a part of my mind is on a different plane of existence, that sensation of it working at a different level bordering on the subconscious. I hook my awareness into it and I find that part of myself reliving my life with my Grandma, reliving our shared experiences.

It sounds stupid, but if feels like I'm close to the divine, and believers of course would say that that is exactly what I am experiencing, that she is still close by (except that I've found that this self-same sensation is achievable through art, whether pieces of sound or music, physical spaces, or visual works of art. In beauty.)

Its just the feeling of another strand of thought dreaming away somewhere under the surface.

When I think of my Grandma right now, I think of her laughing with uncontrolled delight as the cat in that old Goodies episode trampled all over London (she was a real cat lover, not that her cats loved me - I must've only seen them a dozen times in all the time she was alive!)
Her infectiously rich laugh, her warmth, her love.

I think of my parents driving us down towards London to stay with her at weekends, so many years ago, in a house that I recall as clearly as my current home. In fact, I'm sure that one of the things that must have appealed when first seeing my current home with a view to buy is that structurally and in atmosphere it is in fact incredibly similar to my Grandma's home!

I remember the mysterious glass containers of coloured salts and crystals in the bathroom. I remember the excitement of taking a bath there, the London water seeming silky soft and exquisite by contrast to our own hard water.

I remember feeling adrenalised by the sound of the Heathrow flightpath, the roar of Concorde passing over - little things that made life seem so different compared to my own locality, and the excitement of the capital.

I remember small things that now seem intensely personal to my Grandma, like going into her bedroom in the mornings to watch her use her teasmade, or the extravagant breakfasts that she would put on, complete with toast in the rack, something which made me feel like royalty. Little things, personal things, things that made up my Grandma.

All I can hope is that one day I will be made up of so many beautiful, wonderful parts.

Last words

2007-06-26T15:34:00.000+01:00

The last words that my Grandma said to me were during a visit to her care home, when I kissed her on the cheek during a moment of relative lucidity...

"Oh, that was a nice one", she said, with a smile in her voice.

She may have recognised me, she probably couldn't make the connection, but details aren't really the important thing with dementia - it isn't so much who you are, its how you are.

I wish I'd seen her more during her final months. But seeing my dad beaming with love and joy during that rare afternoon of wakefulness was a wonderful, lucky thing.

Some weeks later I visited Grandma again, knowing that this would probably be the last time that I would see her. Just over a week ago.

My last words to my Grandma, as she lay there apparently unaware, were simple.

"Night night".

It's difficult knowing what to say when the life of a loved one is slipping away, whether you think they can hear you or not. The only time I wish I believed in heaven is when I'm struggling for words, to say that I'll see them there. But sleep - peace, rest, respite - is the only thing that seems appropriate.

Sleep well, Grandma.

Dominion

2007-06-23T20:00:00.000+01:00

I was a bit worried about timetraveller John Simm as the Master after last week's Doctor Who episode Utopia.

But just gotta say minutes after this weeks episode... flipping marvellous! I feel enthralled. Shame's he's not got a goatie.

Right, I'm off, Confidential's on... [ENTERING GEEK-MODE]

[Invite for my co-editor to blog]

2007-06-21T18:50:00.000+01:00

My co-editor Stu's VSX word quotient has been very low recently, but after receiving a few text messages from Mr S suddenly all ist now klar. Examples? OK:

Am I over reacting by refusing to re-sign up to whatever evil google considers is necessary to be able to access my/our blogs?"

They are fucking horrible little geeks who have turned into power hungry monsters of death

Fair enough. I think I might have to start leaving blank "invites to blog" posts for my esteemed colleague to put his thoughts in the Comments box. A bit like a blackboard/whiteboard, but green. And not as sophisticated.

Over to you, Stu...

Big Brother 8

2007-06-19T22:44:00.000+01:00

I'd been doing so well.

This was the first series of Big Brother where I've not religiously watched pretty much every show (I even used to record them when on holiday, "just in case" another Nasty Nick Bateman pencil moment takes place.

But this time I was determined not to watch it.

It's felt fairly liberating - my time was to be my own for the entire Summer run - and I've managed to watch all sorts of more constructive televisualisations in the time otherwise wasted. The feeling that I was missing out on something was still tangible, however. I used to look forward to my daily fix.

And tonight I've found myself watching it again, and I can feel myself being drawn in. Bugger.

The last time I caught any of it was for the much-discussed Wigger Emily episode. Back then there was just one bloke called Zippy (or something) in it, surrounded by all manner of female allsorts. Now I've just turned it on on Day 21 (can it only be Day 21?), and there's something like 100 people of all sexes in the BB house, plus Mick Hucknall's in it, or at least I think it was Mick Hucknall, in a hat.

I'm sinking...

Voight-Kampff test results

2007-06-19T21:15:00.000+01:00

11 emotions experienced over the last few months, each elicited by its own independent trigger:

Expectation
Fear
Excitement
Anger
Relaxation
Exhaustion
Frustration
Contentment
Sadness
Joy
Sympathy

Verdict: HUMAN!

Reason for my recent disapp-E-rance

2007-06-19T20:59:00.000+01:00

Look, I've just had a lot on lately.

Unlike here.

(I can't believe I've found that ancient webcam photo on my hard drive, originally taken as a joke, I must add, to freak out friends. And I can't believe I've now gorn and posted it on the interweb. I've been away too long. Ban this sick filth!)

[Although Starbuck's finger may have necessarily been on the pause button, he's very eager to pull it off]

2007-06-15T16:36:00.000+01:00

Still breathing...

2007-06-08T15:30:00.001+01:00

The Watchman and The Walker

2007-05-18T16:07:00.000+01:00

Aaargh, I've just done that thing. That thing that I'm sure most of us do now and again, most of us living comfortable lives free of fear and persecution anyway.

Following a late lunch* I was wandering fairly aimlessly around near my workplace, when I suddenly found myself compelled to stop sharply, look at my wrist-watch, and then start marching with intent in the other direction (back towards work as it happens).

The whole thing was totally out of my control. Why oh why do people do this? And what's with the watch thing - is it because our subconscious cares about what others might think about us and it needs to find a transparent excuse for the sudden about-face? I know that it's not just me, friends have admitted the same, and I've seen total strangers caught within the same compulsion.

Just a mild example of how fragile the human programme really is.

* "Late lunch" - cue** the "Late Lunch with Mel and Sue" theme tune on my internal jukebox.
** Sentence containing the words "cue the". Cue the opening titles to "Cue The Music with Mike Mansfield" (not QC), where the silver-haired old-music supremo said "Cue The Music" from his position at the TV studio gallery mixing desk. Cue also memories of the control desk berks *** sitting in the background being amusing behind the stern-faced record producer.
*** Cue amemory of straining those drunken late-night eyes to determine whether one of the berks was comic impro actor Tony Slattery****
**** Cue a comment on just hoe woeful Slattery's "Norfolk" accent is on the very amenable Sunday night drama series "Kingdom with Stephen Fry". I don't know exactly what it is about Kingdom - on paper it really shouldn't be a Starbuck must-see - but it just seems to warm my cockles. Apparently I smile alot whilst I'm watching it!

Gavin and Stacey

2007-05-18T12:34:00.000+01:00

Quick TV review - Gavin and Stacey (BBC3 Sundays at 9pm, repeated on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays.)

Lovely. Made me well up a few times, and made me chuckle out loud a few times more. A very sweetly romantic but not at all cloying comedy/drama/thing.

Review of Richard Herring on his Menage a Un tour

2007-05-17T18:10:00.000+01:00

Review by Richard Herring:

Sometimes when you’re on tour, death does seem an enticing alternative.

The gig was another one that was slightly hard work and there were more walk-outs – one bloke leaving during the potarto bit which is only 20 minutes in – I don’t think he can have been too offended by that and just thought I was shit (incidentally I saw an Agatha Christie film yesterday afternoon in which Tony Curtis said "potarto" so that’s who it is who does it- slightly ruining my joke, the bastard). I can’t work out if I am doing something differently or if I have just been unlucky to have three slightly more reserved audiences in a row. I am a bit tired and ill and being a little more bitter in performance and pushing some of the naughtier ideas a bit further. Is it too self-indulgent? Have I stretched the elastic too far and broken things? Or is it just that I have had three slightly more middle-class, middle-aged Arts Centre kind of audiences in a row. The Free Beer Show in Oxford tomorrow should sort out the confusion.

The second half picked up a bit and someone put some white powder in my water which made it look like monkey semen. I wasn’t going to risk drinking it, it could be a date rape drug or poison or monkey semen. But the old people on the bonfire, perversely decided they would try and murder me by drinking some of the concoction. Why do they hate me so? Apparently they are rather like the kind of characters who talk to schizophrenics in their heads, becoming increasingly unpleasant and self-destructive. I don’t think I am mad though.

Quite.

Review by Starbuck Powersurge: The Studio at Warmington-on-Sea's certainly not a good venue - the audience always seem dangerously exposed to the comedian on "stage" (or "floor", to be accurate, and the front few rows of the audience actually share the "stage" with the audience, scarily for them), so those not familiar with the lovely lovable Herring might admittedly have felt a bit intimidated, especially with the more caustic material. And anyway, the Sunday night Arts Centre comedy crowd are often a bit quiet I find - let's call it "reverential".

Those of us in the safety of the "rear" seemed to all be having a whale of a time, however - fucking brilliant stuff, as Brian Sewell might put it. Even Mrs Powersurge really enjoyed it, and she's a hard audience to crack (though Rich wasn't the person she thought Richard Herring was going to be; perhaps she was confusing him with Rich Hall having spent the duration of that gig asleep a few months back).

And talking of the "safety of the rear", of all the blasphemies that comedians have launched from the stage, and most of them seem compelled to flaunt their despicable atheistic credentials, Rich proved to be the blasphemer of blasphemers, even topping Stewart Lee's "90's Comedian" tour for gross-out Jesus abuse. Very naughty, and perhaps not an ideal show for St John's Church Westwood's monthly cultural outing, but very funny for the heathens amongst us...

Doctor Who joke

2007-05-08T15:18:00.000+01:00

Q: What's Doctor Who's least favourite side-accompaniment to an Italian meal?

A: Dalek bread.

DALEK BREAD!!! Ha! Ha ha! Ha ha ha! Geddit?

God is a DJ.

2007-05-04T20:58:00.001+01:00

Discuss.

Time waits for no man. But the wise man waits for time.

2007-05-04T13:13:00.000+01:00

Discuss.

Starbuck is going to hell in a handcart. But what is a handcart?

2007-05-04T13:12:00.001+01:00

Discuss.

Secular harmony, let alone an atheist utopia, will prove impossible in a world where religion is only encouraged

2007-05-04T13:11:00.001+01:00

Discuss

As long as people are absorbed by moderate religion, people will be absorbed by extremist religion.

2007-05-04T13:09:00.000+01:00

Discuss.

Whereby the author rambles on self-indulgently about music , TV and stuff

2007-04-26T17:30:00.000+01:00

This was sent to me by my co-editor Stu...

The Life of Wylie: Life On Mars - The Answers
Of course the assumption must be that even the writers Life On Mars are wrong when it comes to their understanding of what the denouement actually revealed, as Starbuck Lewis-Smith's incisive analysis can never be faulted...

Also prompted by my co-editor, read this:
Allmusic - Year Zero (Nine Inch Nails) review
As a reader of these words you will no doubt be a person of discernible and indoubtable taste, and as such you will probably already own Year Zero by Nine Inch Nails.

I've listened to the new album pretty much every day since it was released, a treat my tired old heard-it-all-before ears have not been subjected to in a long long time. I don't know if a lack of time leads to a lack of enthusiasm, but the latest Arcade Fire and The Good The Bad & The Queen both having suffered dismally due to lack of effort on my behalf - I've hardly played them at all. But I digress.

Having now read that review-of-sorts, its nice to know what its all about, and what's apparently going on around it. On my occasional historic expeditions into the hinterlands of the web I've noted that Uncle Trent has been playing the multimedia game for a long time now, his specialty during the self-destructive years apparently being broken websites seeded with coded bit-rot clues. Still, this new campaign looks like something else.

Whatever, it's all about the music, maaaan, and to add my tuppeneth, I reckon its probably the least immediate and approachable of all NIN albums, no matter that its not Titan-heavy, but no matter, because on headphones it's crack-addictive. It just doesn't need Trent's trademark perfect-pitch vocal melodies to stand out above the music, but they're still there and as catchy as ever, despite often being almost subliminally buried within the background.

The fact of it being a "concept album" made the whole thing feel not quite right to me at first, and not just because all concept albums are inherently a little bit silly. Every previous NIN album has been so very personal to Reznor, and personal to your correspondent as well, having grown with and taken strength from his music from the very start (you can tell what an old duffer I am when I say that a gig from the Pretty Hate Machine tour was probably the best concert of my life...)

So I found some difficulty connecting when I first listened to the new album and heard various familiar sound motifs being applied to a story of near-future make-believe. (I concede that The Downward Spiral was a concept album as well, but its impossible not to experience it as a personal metaphor.)

But getting used to change is just part of growing up.

And talking of living through change, just thinking about the songs off the previous album With Teeth makes me smile, even the slightly rubbishy ones. It'll always remind me of my first time. It came out not long before I was wed, and I'd resisted partaking until the very first day of my honeymoon. It was quite overwhelming... the excitement of anticipation having held back for so long, mixed deliciously with a wonderful feeling of joy as me and my new wife enjoyed the sunshine poolside halfway up a Bangkok skyscraper on our first proper day of wedded bliss...

... and listening to the album for the first time was pretty good as well. Boom boom!!!

R: Tape loading error

2007-04-24T15:32:00.000+01:00

The ZX Spectrum was 25 years young yesterday. What better way to celebrate than to rerun that a rerun of Rob Manuel's "Hey Hey 16k" video...

Toilet Tips for Men

2007-04-23T22:57:00.000+01:00

Gentlemen! I've made a discovery that will change your life...

You will no doubt have at some point suffered "wet leg" syndrome, when a leakage of urine escapes from your john thomas following its return to your underwear during a trip to the urinals.

Don't be embarrassed, it happens to all of us at some point. No matter how hard you squeeze your urethral smooth muscle, no matter how vigorously you shake your todger post-toilet, sometimes the safety of your tackle's kit-bag releases a smidgeon of unexpected wee.

The solution:

Bend your knees whilst remaining in a bolt upright position before returning your old chap to your trousers.

Granted, it'll make you look like a 1950s British policeman, and a little bit peculiar with it, but that's a small price to pay for dryness.

Talk about Dickson of Dock Green. Evenin' all!

Frank Carson - It's A Cracker

2007-04-19T12:37:00.000+01:00

Oooh, I so want this, it hurts.

I used to own this glorious booze-soaked album on vinyl, featuring everyone's favourite Irish comic getting audibly more and more drunk as he makes his way through "30 non-stop Irish party songs", interspersed with some very poor jokes (some, such as the "fresh fish sold here" gag being utterly unfathomable).

Alas the album is no longer in my possession, however I am still regularly treated to snippets of song and laughter on my ever-reliable internal jukebox.

And since I'm too scared of eBay to make a purchase there, I'd like to ask one of you, the general public, to kindly purchase it for me. Think of it as a late Birthday present.

Tracklisting here:

Side one:

Seven Drunken Nights
Old Doreen
All For Me Grog
You're A Cracker
Whiskey, You're The Devil
Finnegan's Wake
Whiskey In The Jar
It's A Long Way To Tipperary
Little Arrows
Seth Davey
Black Velvet Band
The Red Rose Cafe
The Old Rustic Bridge
A Mothers Love's A Blessing

Side Two:

Lovely Balbriggan
A Pub With No Beer
When Irish Eyes Are Smiling
Maggie
The Unicorn
Three Bells
Forty Shades Of Green
Rose Of Tralee
Molly Malone
How Can You Buy Killarney
Bottle Of Wine
It's A Sin To Tell A Lie
Leaving Liverpool
There Is Nothing Like A Dame

Enter Shikari verses The Klaxons

2007-04-16T19:50:00.000+01:00

Both great albums, but Take to the Skies beats Myths of the Near Future hands down in my most humble of onions.

I know that critics tend to hit Enter Shikari with the shiney stick of juvenility, saying that the popularity of their music is incomprehensible to anyone over the age of 14. Well I'm significantly older than that, and I think they're flipping marvellous.

Its just the sort of music that I desperately wanted to exist when I was aged 14 - several shades of heavy metal mixed up with bleeping great dance music!

I'd have rated the Klaxons album higher, would it only have had their punk cover of The Bouncer by Kicks Like A Mule ("Your name's not down you're not coming in"). Shame on them!

Paedogeddon

2007-04-12T18:20:00.000+01:00

How depressingly predictable.

According to the heavily weighted interpretation of their latest survey, 99% of readers of that bastion of journalistic reason and veracity are demanding the nationwide rollout of "Sarah's Law" 'to protect children from sex beasts'.

I'm not one of those intellectual snobs who subscribes to the belief that all Sun readers are stupid, suggestible, reactionary idiots, however you just need to look at the Sun's messageboards on this topic to see some very wrongheaded views being thrown about. It's the paediatricians that I feel sorry for.

Vigilantism isn't the same as vigilance. Notwithstanding the agreement amongst child protection agencies that this would be harmful to children in that it would drive sex offenders into hiding.

Facts and sense won't stand in the way of the Sun and the Mail's unhealthy "populist" obsession with this. It's as if they're quoting chapter and verse from the BrassEye Paedophilia Special... "Why is it that we can no longer think of the British Isles, without the word paedoph in front of them? The British Paedoph-isles". Utter scaremongering nonse-sense.

I was gobsmacked when I first heard that the government were planing on running the pilot scheme a few days earlier than seeing the Sun piece.

I mean, for fucks sake, why the hell would you want to know as a parent how many offenders there are in your area? What are you going to do with the knowledge except worry? The gnawing anxiety would eat into every waking hour. Not good. "Well, you don't have to find out" you might say. But lets face it, you're not going to be able to stop those in your neighbourhood making sure that everyone knows it - expect maps in your local papers displaying local "perv densities". And from there you'll get some neanderthal thug feeling "let down by the government" will take the law into his own hands and start burning down houses of those they suspect don't "fit in".

A conspiracy theorist would say its just another controlling tool to up the anxiety ante. I think its just pandering to the lowest common denominator - easy point-scoring, and lazy politics.

Life On Mars final episode [NO SPOILERS]

2007-04-11T18:31:00.000+01:00

Ha ha! It all makes sense now! Unless you're one of those people for whom it didn't make sense, and for whom the final episode of this hugely entertaining drama will have been a whole lot less satisfying...

Anyway, no spoilers here, not until the Comments box anyway, just a log of some thoughts that drifted through my mind as I watched the episode around midnight last night...

"Hmmm. Tired. Ah, good, the music always wakes me up. Good titles... [ring ring... get to the point Starbuck... you're time there is too short for this mental rambling...]

... ahh, I know what's happening.... He must be in a coma in 2006... they've left a television on in his room and its bleeding into his dreams....

... look, the main villain is Leslie Johns... there must be some news story on the box about John Leslie's latest sordid exploits...

... wait, that bloke being tortured... its Marty from Shameless... they must've changed channels...

... now this is getting silly... Paddy McGuire from Shameless is running around with a shotgun..."

Alright Sunshine

2007-04-10T17:38:00.000+01:00

I paid a visit to a darkened cinema yesterday to watch Sunshine, the new film from the Danny Boyle, Andrew McDonald & Alex "Brown Trumpet" Garland.

I very much enjoyed it too, which is just as well, still reeling as I was from the travesty that was their adaptation of The Beach [classic archive VSX review HERE]

My opinion: A good science fiction film, cheeringly straight-faced, and with a polished sheen of realism shielding the inate far-fetchedness of the story.

As is normally the case when watching "straight" sf, I can't help but sit there feverishly anticipating detailed explanations of their ship's gravity system (not explained). I guess that's my problem, not theirs.

I felt they could've done without the scary climax too, though I understand that the stereotypical cinemagoer-at-large might be expecting a little additional exterior tension from their sci-fi (like a bloody great alien). Personally I thought the whole situation was more than compelling enough, without any additional hinderance to the crew's mission getting in the way. Still, Garland's a lover of scary psycho climaxes, which all sounds very wrong as I re-read my words back and realise that I'm probably accusing him of enjoying a certain dark timbre of "specialist" film.

And I certainly hadn't been expecting the denouement, with a number of different potential storyline conclusions having been set in motion.

I can't not mention the s(t)unning visual realisations, of our sun, of its incredible energy, and its interplay with the spaceship that has been sent to bomb it back into life. I've never seen so much light bursting out of a cinema screen. The skies outside seemed much darker than it really was when I came blinking out of the cinema.

That'll have been the evening, then.

The Meaning of Life

2007-04-07T15:00:00.000+01:00

This week I experienced I had perhaps the second most wonderful, most amazing life-exchanging experience of my life. And I experienced it twice! Who knows, perhaps it even snuck into first place, ahead of my wedding day, and that was pretty damn special.

More soon.

Doctor Who new series - Vote Saxon

2007-04-02T16:43:00.000+01:00

A good start for the start of David Tennant's second series as the Doctor. As with previous "new season openers" I was expecting a slight amount of disappointment, especially now that Primeval has effectively raised the bar on quality "family drama entertainment" (Primeval: slick high quality production values, shamefully naff, ugly and cheap-looking DVD packaging).

I suspect that the "Saxon" character that was alluded to will be the slightly annoying "Bad Wolf" or "Torchwood" teaser for this series.

Here's hoping it refers to the ancient British heavy metal band.

Maybe Captain Jack will end up exploring Biff Byford's "Inner Sanctum". Heh!

Whilst I'm still here, I feel I should just add the following on behalf of Lars Ulrich:

The NWOBHM rules! Death to false metal! Maiden Japan rocks! Etc.

Dreaming in digital*

2007-03-30T11:02:00.000+01:00

My dreams last night were experienced through an Ajax interface. A very worrying development.

* With apologies to Queensrÿche

Castaway 2007

2007-03-28T17:57:00.000+01:00

My regular reader will know that I'm a sucker for most "reality gameshow" experiences. Touch The Truck, Big Brother, The Farm, Celebrities In The Jungle, Back to Reality, I get sucked in by them all. Anything as long as it isn't hosted by Patrick Kielty.

In my (possible quite temporary) opinion Castaway 2007 is the finest of the lot. I'm not so bothered about the weekly BBC1 show to be honest (its mostly stuff I've seen elsewhere), but I love Richard Bacon's Sunday night Castaway Exposed show on BBC3 (Bacon: the most underrated and adaptable presenter on the box, despite his stupid shit-eating grin), I avidly soak up the daily BBC3 show with the wonderful Danny Wallace (in the more casual BBC3 format proving himself to be double the entertainment value that even two Ant's and Dec's would be worth if put together, whatever the hell that means), and I even press my red button every day for the even more casual red-button special episode!

So how come nobody's watching it?

Or rather, 2.1 million on BBC1, 58000 on BBC3, and probably just me on the red button?

I just don't get it. What's needed right now is heavy promotion of the fun BBC3 offerings, not the knee-jerk reaction of shifting the package around the scheduling high seas...

The Root of All Emptiness?

2007-03-27T17:37:00.000+01:00

[WARNING: Its time to talk religion. Regular readers who are either likely to be offended or bored by this recurring topic should move along now (life's much better fun elsewhere), and the converted won't need my preaching. However those of a closed-minded bent may want to take heed of the wise words of U.S.U.R.A. Let's face it, I'm only doing this 'cos I care about you...]

I watched the venerable Richard Dawkins getting all hot under the collar about religion in the first episode of his documentary "The Root of All Evil?" on Sunday night. As pure chance would have it, I've just discovered that we watched on Dawkins' 66th birthday. Coincidence? Or something more...!

Poor chap. At least atheist nonentities like me can just try to forget about religion's deleterious effect on humankind. Poor old Dawkins - as Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, he can't really escape infuriation by exposure to ardent believer.

And, when faced with Ted Haggard (hate and stupidity-filled closed-minded aggressive US Christian evangelist ignoramus, recently outed I see) and Yousef al-Khattab (formerly Joseph Cohen, an American-born Jewish Israeli Settler now converted to Islam and also a hate and stupidity-filled closed-minded ignoramus), I don't know how he managed to resist the attack urge. You could see the restraint straining across his face like a dog straining on a lead, as these highly objectionable individuals spewed out their hate-filled poisonous bile - it got pacifistic old ME shouting at the television "PUNCH HIM!"... Did I mention the phrase "hate-filled"?

Still, there's not much that I should say. Believers will ignore me, and the agnostic hopefully shouldn't need my own rationalevangelism. And I don't really want to piss off the majority of people who think differently to me on this, including most of my friends and family. But sometimes I can't help myself. Its fair to say that, for people of strong faith, their gods and prophets must be one of the most defining aspects of their being. Likewise for me my complete lack of faith is something which defines who I am, and I'm incredibly proud of this - its probably one my most best attributes (that, along with being a kind, loving, caring, funny individual, and modest with it too, ha ha).

Of course, they shouldn't need to make programmes like this. They should be properly teaching this stuff in schools, if only to promote debate. Despite coming from a religious family, I came to "My Truth" only through education, through science, through an understanding of the psychology and sociology of belief systems. In fact one of my important moments at school was when I asked to opt out of prayers during morning assembly - somehow I really felt like I had made a breakthrough life decision, a real relief, no matter how hard these thing sometimes are.

And when you hear Dawkins arguments it always strikes me how obvious it all is. Many of us have came separately to many of Dawkins arguments. However repetition leads to belief leads to truth, no matter what the real truth is. And sadly it does look like we now need anti-spiritual leaders to counteract the increasing reach of the spiritual leaders in this information age.

One of the hooks of the documentary was of religion as a danger - terrorism and far-reaching policy shaped by irrational belief and self-interest. My own concerns about religion aren't quite as sociopolitical.

I'm much more concerned with the mental health effects of belief in the irrational. If you are prepared to entertain such beliefs - whether its a god, astrology, ghosts or psychics, whether you suffer from triskaidekaphobia or you think that homeopathy is something more than placebo, then you're creating a chink in your mental armour.

If you are prepared to believe in anything on the basis of "faith" and in the face of all scientific evidence to the contrary, then you are vulnerable, susceptible to doubts about all aspects of life. As the dictionary so rudely puts it, "Susceptible: credulous, dupable, easy, exploitable, gullible, naive." I feel ashamed to say it, but if I see someone poring over a horrorscope I can't help but disrespect them; meet someone who turns out to be a fellow rationalist and they start out at a point of higher esteem. Before then invade Poland, that is*

For, however strong your belief, however much you shout it out loud, deep down there must be a small part of you saying "Hmmm, but what if...", and if you can't trust in something so accepted by society, how can you trust in anything at all.

And that's far from healthy for one's mental health.

As that great philosopher Mr C from The Shamen once wrote, "Believe in yourself you know what you'll find There is no "can't" in a trouble-free mind".

And talking about vulnerability, it actually really saddens me when I hear people state that they hoped there was "something more" out there or that they wished they could believe in a god. This lack of fulfillment that too many people feel is one of those things that really breaks my heart. Its bad enough that people feel so empty nowadays within their own lives that they wish that there was some superhero (or, to be realistic should you believe the belief myths, supervillain tyrant) offering everlasting life to alleviate the pain of life on earth. Its the sort of thing that evangelical religious groups tend to seize upon to "save" or enlist the vulnerable.

As one example website that I stumbled across puts it:

Those who are honest with themselves will admit that at some point in their life they felt an emptiness that nothing could seem to fill. Most of the time some people either stay "numb" to that emptiness by trying to satisfy it artificially thru alcohol or drugs, some stay so busy with work or hobbies trying to fill that empty spot that they develop the ability to ignore it, and some even try to fill that empty spot thru various religions yet still feel like "something" is still missing.

That is because there is an empty spot in each of us that only God Himself can truely and completely fill and satisfy, anything else is just a temporary "band-aid" that only covers the emptiness but never genuinely fills it.

They may indeed believe this to the bottom of their hearts, but it doesn't stop it from being abhorrent.

When my thinking-glands are making me over-paranoid I sometimes wonder if this one reason that Consumerism is so closely entwined with US Christianity. Consumerism creates emptiness by equating happiness with an unattainable flow of material (and digital) possessions. It is, after all, the American Way - wars are fought to spread this Freedom around the world (and America is, after all, God's blessed land.) Christianity steps in to fill the spiritual void of those ripped off by Consumerist ideas, and corporate Christianity works its hardest to amplify the effects. But then I realise that I'm being a berk.

Not that all is this going to matter much, when evolution has its last laugh (H5N1 anyone?)

And one last quote from Dawkins whilst I'm here:

"We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further"

* In-joke for all those religious defenders who incorrectly claim that Hitler was an atheist, ad bloody nauseam.

A Den of Iniquity

2007-03-23T13:22:00.000Z

Spotted (but not watched) on our cable VOD EPG...

One can only wonder how they achieved that 18 certificate. What budding sex industry entrepreneurs must've hawked their filthy wares before the Dragons? What scenes of drugtaking, violence and abuse must've hit the cutting room floor to get the normal episodes on air at 8pm?

A Dirty Den indeed.

And "Best Bits"? I don't want to see any of their "bits", whether it be Farleigh, Dunc, Peter Jones For Shoes, Theo, or the Lovely Deborah Meaden.

Ban this sick filth.

Dream Theatre

2007-03-20T13:37:00.000Z

**Interesting For Me But Not For You Corner**

Fantastic dream last night... I was at a wedding, sitting in the congregation at church, chatting with an elderly Arthur Lowe (aka Dad's Army's Captain Mainwaring)... the two of us behaving like a couple of mischievous schoolboys... lots of uncontrollable giggling... we spotted Ian Lavender (Private Pike) across the church, exchanged waves.... there was a very old chap standing with the wedding party at the front, but we weren't sure if it was John Le Mesurier (Sgt Wilson)... it looked a bit like him, but we didn't want to try to catch his attention in case we were wrong... and we didn't want to go up to ask him if it was he, in case he gave us a withering look...

... later on at the wedding reception, myself and Lowe still hanging out like best buds, making prank phone calls to friends...

I think I'm missing friends.

Starbuck's 29 most interesting photos according to Flickr

2007-03-19T18:16:00.000Z

But what do they know. They're just a bunch of stoopid algorithms!

As of 19th March 2007...

Permalink

		Mid viewpoint on Ko Wua Talap



		Baby Langur Monkey

		Just what the hell is going on here!!!

		Happy deflated birthday!

		Afterglow of daytime

		Cock of the walk

		Guinea pigged out

		Winter sunset

		Moss Side Parting

		Tong Yang beach 3

		Grand Massif

		The sun crowning the Palazzo Pubblico

		Mediterranean from La Manga 2

		Ko Wua Talap

		View from a Mother Elephant 2

		Please buy...

		Bearing the load

		Guys Cliffe House - Exterior - decrepit staircase

		Trees on the horizon

		Rush hour

		Joined in light

		A porthole in the trees...

		Lone Tree on the horizon

		Archway

		Departing Ang Thong 2

		Thai dancers 1

		Garden Pool 5

		Garden Pool 4

		Mind the wake!

I've entered Garth Merenghi's dark place... and I loved it!

2007-03-16T16:30:00.000Z

The only consolation following the recent spat between my cable provider and BSkyB, is that Virgin Media have made their archive of "thousands of on-demand TV programmes" free of charge as a placatory gesture following the loss of Sky's flagship entertainment channel, Sky One.

I normally balk at paying 50p for a half-hour TV show, and I've tended to resist watching the freebie first episodes of a Video On Demand series just in case it turns out that I rather like it.

This happened last year with The Mighty Boosh. I saw the first two episodes of the first series free, then resisted watching the remaining episodes, thinking that although it would be worth the money, I'd much prefer to own the DVD at some point, and I didn't want to pay for the same episodes twice. Consequently I was left painfully Boosh-less for 10 months whilst I waited for Christmas to come round.

But sod it, I've been gobbling up all the free content that I can. And I'm overjoyed to have finally managed to catch Garth Merenghi's Darkplace, a show much recommended in the past by elements of my blogroll, and with good reason. Darkplace, Darkplace, Darkplace, Darkplace!

I know that hyperpole is my business, but business is good! So might I overexcitedly rave that its probably my favourite comedy, EVER! Probably. Such a joy, and laugh-out-loud funny, and I NEVER laugh out loud.

For a taster, not that it'll mean much to most of you, visit horror writer Garth's official website. If you dare...

And man, I wish I'd seen Man to Man with Dean Learner last year, the chatshow by Garth's publisher & fellow Darkplace non-actor Dean Learner.

Favourite Dean quote (talking about actress Madeline Wool, missing presumed dead): "She was like a candle in the wind... unreliable."

Of course, that's not really Dean Learner playing Thornton Reed, its the wondeful Richard Ayoade playing Dean Learner playing Thornton Reed.

I've been seeing a lot of Ayoade of late. Likewise, the Booshes' Julian Barratt (the Padre in Darkplace Hospital) and Noel Fielding, the triumvirate of which also starred in Nathan Barley, something else I've managed to catch up via VOD.

I couldn't get into Nathan Barley first time round. It just didn't gel with me, and then I only managed to catch the few few eps before giving up on it. But since then I've fallen into manly love with Barratt so I thought I'd give it another chance. With a cast list to die for, and Charlie Brooker and Chris Morris on the writing team, perhaps I was just too much of an Idiot back in 2005. And second time round, not expecting any great LOL moments, I was delighted to find - it's well weapon!

Tabloid attention

2007-03-14T17:37:00.000Z

Well I never. To be exact, I('ve) never before been contacted by a newspaper journalist , chasing up a lead - my lead! - based on some of the worthless words sitting in the VSX archive. But thet's exactly what happened yesterday.

This guy (see, even I can do a bit of investigative research!), a features writer for the Daily Mirror, emailed me about something I wrote 3½ years ago. He is compiling a biographical article on an entertainer that I've had mystical dealings with in the past, and stumbled across VSX whilst doing the Google legwork.

To borrow a phrase from the most inane of tabloid letters pages, I had to laugh when I looked at the post in question. What a load of old nelly! Its always funny looking back at old posts, especially back in the glory days of first-year blogging, but October 2003 has definitely made me chuckle a fair bit more than March 2007. So far. And always nice to see that my two co-editors were a bit more talkative back then as well. I think one of them must've died he's been so quiet...

But I digest.

When I told Mrs Powersurge about the hot (read as: lukewarm) news reporter (read as: tabloid journo) interest (read as: fishing) in my story, I was told in no uncertain terms that I wasn't allowed to make up any barefaced lies to feed to him , which is a shame. I promised. No slander from me. Nose lander.

I must apologise. This article was just moving into uncharted areas of hilarity, as I entered a Ross Noble style tangent about miniature astronauts and stage hypnotists. However I've just heard that Nescafé bean-shaker Gareth Hunt has sadly passed away, which has fair thrown me off kilter, but has provided a perfect get-out-clause on this blog posting.

I'm off to mourn. See ya.

Shaggy Blog Stories

2007-03-13T13:43:00.000Z

Its Comic Relief time, f-f-f-folks, and I'd like to point the lucky random surfer (who fulfills all of the appropriate criteria) in the direction of Troubled Diva's Shaggy Blog Stories project.

But be quick. You've got til 6pm tonight (13th March) to submit your words of lightening relief. So come on, you fackin' funny fathaflipping Brit bloggers, get those entries in. It's all, as it were, for charity, mate.

Thanks to Birdy for urging me to do my bit.

Rod Hull and Emusical jokes

2007-03-12T17:36:00.000Z

Its the little things that tell you you're turning into an old duffer.

Standing at the checkout in Tesco at the weekend I was listening to the conversation between the the bloke on the checkout and his lurking mate. "Ah hah, a joke," I thought, as his giggling associate initiated the common root structure behind a popular form of witticism, "I like jokes!".

The joke was thus:

How many emus does it take to change a light bulb?
None, 'cos they're too busy crying in the corner.

"Hmmm. Not so funny", I thought, as I pondered the 1999 roof-fall death of the popular emu-puppet-funnyman Rod Hull. "And not too contemporary, either."

Strange too, considering that the young whippersnapper of a lad on the till must've been less than 8 when his fatal Champions-League-TV-aerial-adjustment-error took place. "Guess it must've shaken the poor kid up pretty bad to remember something like that. Still, he's putting on a brave face, gallows humour and that."

The boy's mate then started pointing repeatedly at him, taunting "Emu, emu, emu. Emo."

Ah, yes. Emo. A definition of musical genre that has largely passed me by, especially in its utter pointlessness modern form. Its like when 2 Unlimited called themselves "Techno", and an entire fabulous musical genre became tainted in the minds of the ill-informed masses by the piss-stain of their cheap commercial bandwagonism.

This ain't a scene its a goddamn arseface. C'mon, techno techno techno techno.

Welcome To The World

2007-03-11T21:22:00.000Z

Congratulations to the GaynerAdam entity. The family is further consolidated!

Forenames are yet to be decided upon, so any suggestions would I'm sure be very welcome. "Baby Barry" has sadly been rejected.

Litterbuggers

2007-03-07T17:39:00.000Z

THIS.

Paxman's spot on, of course. Just look around you the next time you're out and about in GB. Whether you are a city-dweller sweeping amongst the urban detritus, or have made the great escape into the oxygen of rural lanes, its like we're turning our country into a rubbish dump. And its our populace of despondent, uncaring, selfish Stigs that're very much to blame.

I reckon that the only way we can change their unthinking ways is to confront them with the squalor they are creating for us all. Bring it on back to them, as a great band once nearly-sang. Direct action.

If I see anyone drop rubbish on the ground, I pick it up, follow them home, and then post it through their letterbox. No matter that I am now stumbling around on crutches with a broken arm, a rack of fractured ribs, and two black eyes.

Celebrities are the worst offenders, in my experience. You'd be shocked to the core at the trail of litter that Adrian Chiles leaves behind him when caught on the hop. The man's been hanging out with Radcliffe too long...

Musical interlude

2007-03-07T10:33:00.000Z

Ti od! Ti od!

strum strum
widdle widdle
screech screech

Davros and the Mechanics

2007-03-03T23:17:00.000Z

I lead an exciting progressive life.

Watching Genesis of the Daleks on DVD last night, my conscious awareness was washed with some gentle waves of memory from my childhood.

Before checking the transmission date I had assumed I must've watched the story on TV as a child, but as Sarah Jane climbed the missile gantry the memories coalesced and sharpened. Sitting in my bottom bunk bed bunk as a small child, re-reading the chapter so that I could visualise her escape as clearly as I could.

A strange but wonderful feeling revisiting a story from my early childhood memory after such a time and in a different media, though I must say that the special effects were a lot better in my 1970s imagination, the surface of quarry/planet Skaro especially.

My nephew's a big Doctor Who fan, and he'd be about the same age as I was when I first read Genesis. I'd like to think that, although many of his current memories will be washed away by the synaptic ebb and flow of progression through life, he'll still be unearthing chunks of Who memories decades down the line.

Epilogue - Why I Still Like Doctor Who So Much

It's a link to my childhood, and its something I've thus had ownership of for the whole of my life
Because it reminds me of my stag party, which took place just a few weeks into the Russell T Davies Who revival. A group of overexcited thirtysomething men whipping themselves into a sci-fi frenzy. And, as such, it reminds me of my wedding! Ahhh...

- Viper Squad Ten -

Dexter Season 4 finale review

Now that's magic!

Inception

I did this!

Frank Sidebottom RIP

Lost - The End - an atheist's viewpoint

Viper Squad Ten - the return

[breath drawn]

[rib cage expands outwards]

[intercostal muscles contract]

[Diaphragm creaks downwards]

Come back

Co incidents

More precognonsense

Yeah© - infringement by MLC Ritchie

Robot Wars on Terror

Moc-moc-a-moc

Welcome Back [Sychic Starbuck]

Starkid Smell

Starkid Smile

Ravey Baby

Christian Voice

Radio 1 news

Global Warning

Review: The Mighty Boosh - S3E1 - Eels

Hilarious soundalike

Baby in a Basket

Crap

Photo Flashback 9

Photo Flashback 8

Photo Flashback 7

Photo Flashback 6

Photo Flashback 5

Photo Flashback 4

Photo Flashback 3

Photo Flashback 2

Photo Flashback 1

Infant Music

The Powersurge Family grows by 8 pounds

Popular Music Soundalikes

Wii-brained

Ninetendo Months

2006 film & music roundup

Music musings

A promotional ident to drum up viewer interest ahead of the new season on VSX

Black

Red

Signs of Life

James Nesbitt - the 11th Doctor Who?

Tedcase

OCD joke

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Cheap Innuendo

Musical Youth

TV reviews

"You'll never guess who I had in my funeral car the other week"

[purely as a personal record]

Thinking about my Grandma

Last words

Dominion

[Invite for my co-editor to blog]

Big Brother 8

Voight-Kampff test results

Reason for my recent disapp-E-rance

[Although Starbuck's finger may have necessarily been on the pause button, he's very eager to pull it off]

Still breathing...

The Watchman and The Walker

Gavin and Stacey

Review of Richard Herring on his Menage a Un tour

Blogroll update [with a few tears and cheers along the way]

Doctor Who joke

God is a DJ.

Time waits for no man. But the wise man waits for time.

Starbuck is going to hell in a handcart. But what is a handcart?

Secular harmony, let alone an atheist utopia, will prove impossible in a world where religion is only encouraged

As long as people are absorbed by moderate religion, people will be absorbed by extremist religion.

Whereby the author rambles on self-indulgently about music , TV and stuff

R: Tape loading error

Toilet Tips for Men

Frank Carson - It's A Cracker