irrationale

Moon over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch

2012-01-06T09:04:00.012Z

You may remember I reviewed "Rivers of London" last summer. "Moon over Soho" is the sequel. In the last review, amongst other things, I said:

"You know those detective stories where the male lead character meets attractive female characters and they rapidly find themselves in an explicit sex scene? This isn't one of those stories." and
"The fact that much of the romantic tension still remains at the end of the book suggests to me that the author intends to develop the relationships between these characters over several books..."

The first thing I should say is that Moon over Soho fails to follow in the footsteps of those observations. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Minor spoilers may follow, but I'll not give anything significant away.

Rivers of London ended up with one of the potential love interest characters seriously injured following the events described in that book. While she does have a minor role in this book, her part in the story is surprisingly brief and she only really exists here to make our hero feel a bit guilty, every now and then. The other potential love interest character from the first book doesn't feature here at all, so maybe I got the wrong impression from the first book, but anyway.

The story carries on with our hero, the apprentice to the supernatural-investigating police inspector, investigating two different but connected magical murder inquiries. In one, a series of apparently healthy and very talented jazz musicians die of 'natural causes' in unusual circumstances. In the other, a series of men die in very painful ways, apparently at the, erm, hands of a murderer with 'vagina dentata'. Nuff said. (Google it if you need more info, which you really don't.)

The story is entertaining and moves along at a good pace, which accelerates nicely towards the conclusion. Along the way we find out a bit more about our hero's family, a little bit more about magic, quite a lot about jazz, and a little glimpse into the country's magical past. I suspect there's more there for future books, but then again I was wrong in my predictions after the last book, so I could be wrong again.

As I hinted above, there is a lot more sex in this book than in the last. It kind of springs out of nowhere and seems a bit out of place, but then you come to realise that actually it is part of the plot and is there for a purpose. It actually does serve to make the conclusion a bit more involving.

There are fewer instances of the clunky writing/editing that I noticed in the first book, although there are still one or two points where the narrative jumps in a slightly disconcerting way - usually when providing a bit of back story for an event or character. But that's a minor niggle.

It becomes apparent that there is a 'Moriarty' type criminal mastermind somewhere in the background in this story and it is both annoying and intriguing in the way that his storyline is not resolved by the end of this book.

The two primary crime stories are both resolved here, one in a satisfactory way, and the other a bit less so. Rather than being a single plotline in its own right, the second murder inquiry becomes merged into the larger 'Moriarty' type plot, so its conclusion is brief and not fully resolved. But don't let you stop that reading this excellent book.

So, should you read this book? Yes, I think so, but only if you read Rivers of London first.

Is it better than its predecessor? No, but its not significantly worse either. More of the same really. If you liked the first, then you'll like the second. And probably the third too.

Will I read the next installment of the story "Whispers Underground" when it is published in the summer? Absolutely, yes.

Loony Dook in 3D

2012-01-04T16:45:00.003Z

Having downloaded the 3D photo app for my phone, I thought I'd give it a try. Here's two pictures of this year's Loony Dook in 3D. Hope you've got a pair of Red/Cyan specs handy. Utterly pointless, but still...

Doctor Who: Let's kill Hitler [first impressions]

2011-08-29T09:39:00.002Z

What? Eh? What???

More reasoned thoughts to follow.

Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch

2011-06-25T06:45:00.004Z

Just finished reading this. It seemed like quite a short book, or maybe I just got engrossed in it and read it faster than usual, its hard to tell when you're reading on a Kindle.

The basic plot (no significant spoilers) is that a young London uniformed police constable gets posted to the scene of an inexplicable murder and interviews one witness, who happens to be a ghost. As a consequence of this and other events, he ends up apprenticed to the London police's only supernatural-investigating inspector. Yes, more or less a London police 'X-Files'.

The plot is interesting, engaging, fast moving and fun. About 3/5ths of the way through the book, you think you see how its going to resolve, and then wonder how the author is going to pad that out for the remaining chapters, and then the plot twists, and twists again, and again. In quite a roller coaster ride of events.

For the most part, the book is well written, but there are a few clunky scenes where it seems that a few lines of dialogue or description are simply missing. For example, at the end of the 2nd murder scene events, one of the characters dies. I read the page about three times and its still unclear to me how they died. In one paragraph they were running past our hero, in the next they were dead and sprawled on the floor, but with no description connecting the two. In a couple of other places (though none as obvious as that one) there seem to be short snippets of description that are simply missing. But its not a huge problem, and didn't really detract from my enjoyment of the story.

You know those detective stories where the male lead character meets attractive female characters and they rapidly find themselves in an explicit sex scene? This isn't one of those stories. There's a nicely written underlying air of unresolved sexual tension that runs through parts of this story as the main character completely fails to have liaisons with his female co-worker and one of the other female characters in the book. The fact that much of the romantic tension still remains at the end of the book suggests to me that the author intends to develop the relationships between these characters over several books, and that very much makes me want to go straight on to the next book, although the reality of an unresolved storyline stretching across three or more books might get annoying after a bit. But maybe it won't come to that.

So, I'd recommend this book to you. Its a lot of fun, is quite interesting, and there's clearly much more involving these characters to come in future books.

Oh, and I've just discovered that Ben Aaronovitch was one of the writers on Doctor Who back in the late 80s. He is responsible for the scene in which a Dalek was first witnessed (by the 7th Doctor and Ace) hovering up the stairs! Actually, I remember that story with some fondness, although the SFX were typically rubbish, as I recall.

And one of the many problems of having a Kindle is that I could simply buy 'Moon over Soho' right now and start reading the next book straight away...

It must be spring... the bike is out again.

2011-03-02T12:02:00.005Z

Spring must have sprung. I got the bike out of retirement today and cycled to work, for the first time since October. Surprisingly it didn't kill me. MapMyRide.com tells me that the route is 11.7 miles, and it took me 1hr 25min. Hmmm. That's an average of 8.25 mph. Not great. Although, having said that my fastest time of the same route last year came in at only a little over an average of 9 mph.

Perception of time

2011-02-25T07:13:00.010Z

I have a theory.

It might not be a very good one, and I can't prove it, but (even if somebody else has proposed this before, which they probably have) I did come up with it completely independently.

It relates to our perception of time.

You know how, as you get older, every passing year seems to pass faster than the previous one? Obviously, the actual years are not getting faster, only our perception of them.

My theory is this: Your perception of the speed of time passing is directly related to the amount of time which you have already witnessed passing.

Thus, for me, 1980 was 1/10th of my life, so it seemed to take a long time, whereas 1990 was 1/20th and seemed to pass a lot faster. 2010 was only 1/40th of my life and whooshed past. And so on.

The problem with this, if true, is that I have now realised that most of my perception of life is over, irrespective of how long I live! If I am lucky enough to live to 80 years old (i.e. twice my current age of 40), then my perceived time remaining (1/41 + 1/42 + 1/43 + ... + 1/79 + 1/80) is only 14% of my life, normalised by perception - 86% of my perceived life (1/1 + 1/2 + 1/3 + ... + 1/39 + 1/40) has already passed!

Even if medical science is able to extend my life to 200 years, I've still perceived over 70% of my life already.

If, as some claim, medical science will be able to halt aging within the next few decades, and lifespans of people begin to tend towards hundreds, perhaps a thousand years, then that doesn't deal with the perception problem. By the age of 500 a year passing will be perceived as being faster than a month does for me now. Even if I was to live to be 2000 years old, I've still experienced more than half of my perceived life already!

Presumably, the only way to halt or reverse this acceleration is to forget stuff - effectively reducing the amount of already perceived time?

Kindle!

2010-11-29T09:14:00.000Z

Reader, I bought one.

Thoughts to follow in due course.

Whatever happened to the Big Crunch?

2010-08-20T06:25:00.007Z

According to this news story, 'scientists' now believe that the universe will continue expanding forever.

How things change. When I was a physics student (about 20 years ago), the dominant theory was that the universe was expanding, following the Big Bang, but was decelerating in its expansion. The theory went that at some (future) time the universe would reach its maximum size and then begin collapsing in on itself, eventually ending up in the opposite of the Big Bang - the Big Crunch.

At the time it was taught to us as 'fact'. Now it appears that it was wrong and we have a new 'fact'.

"'A thousand years ago we thought the world was a bowl,' he said. 'Five hundred years ago we knew it was a globe. Today we know it is flat and round and carried through space on the back of a turtle.' He turned and gave the High Priest another smile. 'Don't you wonder what shape it will turn out to be tomorrow?'"

Terry Pratchett, 'The Truth'

Kindle?

2010-08-10T09:40:00.006Z

I love the look and size of the new Amazon Kindle.

I like the idea, and the cost seems reasonable. But I have some doubts. So I'm weighing up the pros and cons... your opinions are appreciated.

Pros: Compact, portable, user-friendly, good battery life, large (and growing) selection of titles available, bookmarks in lots of books, no more piles of books cluttering up cupboards and wardrobes in my house, it now views PDFs natively, (some) titles are (a bit) cheaper than buying a physical book, instant purchase and read anywhere - no more 'I have nothing to read tonight'...

Cons: DRM, you can't lend books to other people, approx 2/3 of the books on my current Amazon Wishlist are not on Kindle, e-books aren't (on the whole) that much cheaper than physical books, some are even approx the same price as physical books, which is just cheeky...

One of my biggest concerns is related to the DRM. With my iPod, i'm still one of those people who buys the physical CD and then transfers DRM free mp3 to my iPod. That means that all my songs are on my current iPod, and I can transfer them to my future iPod, or future non-iPod mp3 player, etc. And even the DRMed downloads I have from the iTunes store are physically on my computer (with licenses), I can back them up to disc and keep them safe should anything go wrong.

I believe you cannot do this with the Kindle. Kindle titles are 'backed up' online by Amazon, so I have no control of my own media. If they muck up (which might not happen to me, but statistically is highly likely to happen to someone) then they'll lose the books that have been paid for. Potentially, you could end up paying for nothing. Also, I was reading into it and the book licenses are limited to a finite number of devices. OK, I don't need my books to be on many devices at once, but what if I upgrade the reader every couple of years? At some point there will come a time when I cannot add a book I have paid for to a new device that I own, because all the licenses have been used up on previous devices. A book on my shelf will never expire in this way, although it could get worn out by over-reading and need replaced.

But is this an important issue? I don't know. Its all hypothetical.

Update: just compared prices of all the books on my wishlist which are on Kindle...

If I bought all of them on Kindle compared to real books, I'd make a saving of £27.12, or 22% of the real book price. One ('hard to find') book in particular has a Kindle price of only 36% of the real book price. But then again, one on the list was more expensive on Kindle than in paperback, only by 45p, but hey.

Still undecided.

Doctor Who opinions... [with spoilers]

2010-07-09T08:00:00.000Z

So, another series of Doctor Who has come and gone. We have now got to know our new Doctor, and his new companion(s), we've seen vampires, weeping angels, Vincent van Gogh, a future Queen of Britain, some long buried aliens and a wedding. But was it any good?

Well, here's my take on it: It was OK. But not great. Quite a long way from great.

So what about the 11th Doctor?

Well, he's OK as well. Not as good as David Tennant (who was a great Doctor from his very first episode), possibly not as good as Christopher Eccleston either. I quite like the 'eccentric old duffer' persona, although the occasional flashes of arrogance don't really fit well with the character.

What about Amy Pond?

Hmmm. In general I like the character of Amy, she has all the traits of a good companion. And yet her behaviour is quite often inappropriate for a kids tv show on at dinner time. I think they should turn her libido down a bit for the next series. Glad they've kept her for more than one series though.

Rory?

I was quite irritated by the character of Rory at first, and then I was annoyed when they wrote him out, and also a bit annoyed by the way they brought him back at the end. Still don't know why Amy is with him, they really don't seem to go together. He waits 2000 years for Amy, protecting her, they get married, and yet as soon as she gets the chance she's still after a snog off the Doctor, not a good sign for the relationship. I think Rory'll be fairly pointless and useless from here on in and they'll have to write him out again somehow.

River Song?

She still annoys me. All that "spoilers" stuff is just irritating. And it looks like we might have more of her in the next series. Sigh.

So, here's a quick episode by episode comment:

The Eleventh Hour: was an ok introduction to a new Doctor and new companion. 6/10
The Beast Below: so many references to so many preceding Doctor Who stories I hardly know where to start. This felt like a re-hash when it should have had something fresh. 4/10
Victory of the Daleks: I liked this one. Silly, but quite fun. 7/10
The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone: the first part had the single scariest moment in any Doctor Who story thus far (when Amy is alone in the ship with nothing but a video looping), which was excellent. After that they kind of lost it and the story went downhill. 6/10
The Vampires of Venice: silly and fun. Not really tea-time family entertainment though, and the worst FX in the series so far. 7/10
Amy's Choice: felt like a filler episode. Pointless. 5/10
The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood: this one should have been really good, but once again the end result was somehow less than the sum of its parts. 6/10
Vincent and the Doctor: an invisible giant budgie. Sigh. 4/10
The Lodger: interesting but didn't really seem like a complete story. 6/10
The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang: could see the 'twist' coming a mile off. As usual with season finales they tried to fit far too much into the story. Nice resolution, but would have benefited with some decent story writing. What happened to the guy who wrote 'The Girl in the Fireplace' and 'Blink'? They should get him back. 7/10

In the grand scheme of things I don't think this series was as good as Series 3 (with Martha; which is certainly my favourite series so far) or 4 (with Donna; next best) or even Series 1 (9th Doctor and Rose), but was much like Series 2 (10th Doctor and Rose) which had some good bits, but the overall effect was less than the sum of its parts.

Hopefully the 'new' Doctor will have got into his stride by the next series.

'Hood' by Stephen R Lawhead

2010-05-22T20:14:00.003Z

I've just finished reading 'Hood' by Stephen R. Lawhead.

It was, erm, kind of OK.

I have had mixed experiences with Lawhead books. I loved the original Pendragon trilogy, loved 'The Paradise War', liked 'The Silver Hand', thought the resolution of the trilogy in 'The Endless Knot' was a bit 'meh', was really, really, really disappointed by 'Byzantium'. Thought the later two Pendragon books were quite good, and so on.

He is certainly a gifted story teller. Occasionally he is a great story writer.

In Hood we have great story telling. Shame the plot is sooooo slow. Nothing happens for chapters at a time. Indeed, the thing that I had expected to happen by about a third of the way into the book, only really happens at the end of the book. Or, in other words, this book is pure introduction from beginning to end. It is basically the setup for the rest of the trilogy or series or whatever it is. Luckily I have parts 2 and 3 sitting on my shelf, but a book that is all intro is irritating.

I will read the next one, but I have other things to read first.

Currently reading 'Under Heaven' by Guy Gavriel Kay. Which is great so far, but I'm only a few chapters in...

Poor grasp of geography...

2010-03-26T09:51:00.004Z

Spotted this van on my way to work this morning. Sorry for poor quality pic. I was very impressed by the company's grasp of geography.

It may not be clear from the photo, but this company has offices at 13 locations around Scotland, indicated on the map. Their base appears to be Coatbridge.

They also have offices at:

Falkirk, which appears to be 50 miles South and slightly West of Coatbridge
Irvine, which appears South East of Coatbridge and North East of Falkirk
Leith, which is placed about 20 miles South and East of Edinburgh
Selkirk, which appears to be just over the border in England

It must make it hard for them transporting goods between their stores...

Sherlock Holmes

2010-01-02T08:24:00.004Z

There was a moment, about half an hour into the movie Batman Begins, when I realised I'd been watching the thing with a big, silly grin on my face. It was close to perfect - the essence of Batman, distilled and displayed on screen. It was, in short, exactly what a Batman film should be.

Amazingly enough, I had a similar experience while watching Sherlock Holmes! No, its not an adaptation of one of the many Sherlock Holmes stories. And it takes some large liberties with the canon of Holmes, but it did contain the essence of Holmes. And it is highly entertaining.

In the stories Holmes is much more of a 'Queensberry rules' boxer than a bare knuckle cage fighter, and he injects drugs rather than turning to drink when he's bored, but while the specifics may be different, the spirit of the thing is spot on.

And the dog is a piece of inspired genius!

Very, very well done Mr Ritchie. I'm hoping for equally great things in SH2...

Disabled?

2009-10-01T15:57:00.001Z

Spotted this in a disabled toilet. Only for disabled people with two hands, it would seem.

Movie roundup...

2009-06-05T09:00:00.001Z

I took a couple of transatlantic flights a couple of weeks back. Which, amongst other things, allowed me the chance to catch up on a few films I'd missed at the cinema.

The selection on offer was pretty good, but I passed on the chance to watch 'Frost/Nixon' or 'Slumdog Millionaire' - I'll watch them on DVD sometime anyway. Instead I watched 'Quantum of Solace', 'Yes Man' and 'The day the earth stood still' on the outbound flight, and I watched 'Milk' on the return flight; which I've already blogged about. I also saw 'Star Trek' while I was there, but that's worthy of its own blog posting, when I get the chance...

Quantum of Solace

I heard several reviews of this along the lines of 'you must re-watch Casino Royale before watching this, or you won't have a clue what's going on', yet I watched this without having seen CR since it was in the cinemas and managed to follow the plot (such as there is) pretty well.

Its entertaining nonsense. But we've known that about Bond for decades. So we have the usual mix of over the top action sequences, espionage and exotic locations. If anything, this owes even more of a debt of gratitute to the Bourne movies than Casino Royale ever did, but its heart is still Bond. Certainly not the greatest Bond film, certainly not the worst.

But the building control officer who approved the plans for that hotel in the desert should be shot! Have these people never heard of risk analysis? ;o)

Yes Man

I haven't (yet) read the book, so came at this with few preconceptions, except the obvious 'oh no, its Jim Carrey girning again' one. I found it quite entertaining and Zooey Deschanel (and Terence Stamp) elevate it to a better film than it probably beserves to be. Light-hearted fluff, but a fun hour and a half. Sufficient laugh out loud moments to make it a good comedy and, of course, Zooey is as captivating and sweet as ever. And Jim Carrey isn't too annoying. But this is Zooey's movie. The cameo by Danny Wallace looks totally staged though.

The day the earth stood still

Keanu Reeves is a relitively emotion-free alien. I can buy that. There's nothing earth-shattering here, but the film is entertainingly diverting for an hour and a half. They could have done more with it, but it could have been so much worse. You do actually care what happens to Jennifer Connelly's character, even if her step-son is an unnecessarily contrived plot device. Don't pay to see it, but watch it if its on...

Milk

2009-06-04T12:00:00.002Z

I watched this movie on a flight from New York to Amsterdam a couple of weeks ago. It's excellent.

For those of you who don't know, its the bio-pic of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to public office in the USA; in the late 70s.

I feel I have to state up front that the pre-AIDS gay scene, particularly the San Francisco one featured here, fascinates me and repulses me in more or less equal measure.

I find the sense of community, bonding, shared responsibility, shared homes and possessions, etc., really quite appealing - in some ways its oddly reminiscent of the way the Bible portrays the early church; the believers (a persecuted minority) being united in possessions and purpose.

Of course where the SF gay scene in the 70s differs from the early church is the sexual promiscuity, etc.

I did find the sexuality in this movie pretty tough going at times. There's nothing explicit on screen, but I found some of the attitudes and behaviour pretty repulsive - particularly the elevation of the importance of sex above the importance of relationship. There's one scene here where two guys start making out before they even know each other's names. I know this happens in heterosexual as well as homosexual circles, but I still find that pretty uncomfortable viewing.

The movie starts with Harvey Milk recording a message to be played only in the event of his assassination. It sets up your expectations for the film. Before viewing the film, the only two things I knew about Harvey Milk were that he was the first openly gay man elected to public office in the USA, and that he was murdered while in office. However, I think the opening of the film kind of puts false expectations onto the viewer, as he wasn't really murdered for his homosexuality (as is implied at the outset, and throughout the film), but for other political reasons. However, that is really a minor niggle.

Sean Penn gives an outstanding performance as Harvey Milk. How he didn't win awards for this performance is a mystery - this is a masterclass in acting. From the word go, I wasn't watching Sean Penn acting the part of Harvey Milk, I was watching Milk himself. This is a good enough reason to watch the film in itself.

The character of Harvey Milk is also very interesting. He didn't set out to be a politician. Indeed, the film starts on the eve of his 40th birthday when he's reflecting on his life and he realises that he's not really done anything of note. But we see him slowly changing from the attitude of "someone should do something about this..." to "nobody else is going to do something, but I can do something...". Its amazing how this shy guy transforms into a figure head and a leader.

The rest of the cast are good too, and the period setting is perfectly evoked, but this is Penn/Milk's movie.

Its fascinating, informative, thought-provoking and entertaining. Highly recommended.

Reggie Perrin

2009-04-25T06:52:00.003Z

I laughed only once in the first episode of Reggie Perrin last night. Probably won't bother with episode 2. Then again, I probably wouldn't find the original that entertaining if I was to revisit it today.

But what is it with BBC1 sitcoms? They're all unfunny!

The Dark Volume by G.W. Dahlquist

2009-03-29T19:19:00.003Z

You may remember I reviewed 'Glass Books of the Dream Eaters' a couple of years back. Well, this is the follow up.

If you loved Glass Books..., you've probably read the sequel already, so I guess there's not much point in reviewing it for you. So, what did you think?

I found Glass Books a really exciting and engaging experience. It really was one of those books you lose yourself in. But it wasn't perfect. Probably my greatest complaint about Glass Books is the ending - it comes too abruptly and leaves the central characters in an unresolved setting. Glass Books is a very well told exploration of an unfamiliar land, as you read you find out more about the people, more about the place, more about the science, etc. It doesn't all make sense at the outset, but as the story unfolds bits fall into place and you deduce what's going on, or it is revealed to you. But. It ends with the feeling that you've only been told about 9/10ths of the story.

The Dark Volume picks up where Glass Books left off and carries on the story. But the main problem is that there isn't a whole load of story that we were unaware of in the first book. There's still only 1/10th of the story of Glass Books left to tell. And this is padded out to fill a book the size of its predecessor. Indeed, I was very annoyed to discover that the story is still unresolved at the end of The Dark Volume, so we've actually been told less than 1/10th of the story. There's at least another volume to come.

Glass Books worked so well because it teased the reader with tantalising partial revelations for most of the first half of the book, which were then fully revealed later on. There was also plenty of adventure and exploration. But all the revelation was done in Glass Books, there was nothing really new to reveal here. And for the most part we visited the same locations as the earlier book. And the adventure was fairly run-of-the-mill. So, by the end, I really didn't care anymore.

I hope the next book is better. I also hope the next book concludes the story. But what I really want now is for G.W. Dahlquist to go and write a brand new adventure, with new characters and new twists and tease and tantalise us like last time.

Wikipedia Names Your Band

2009-03-05T12:01:00.003Z

Wikipedia Names Your Band.

Here's how you do it:

1. Go to a random Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The name of the article becomes your band's name.

2. Go to Random Quotations:
http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last 4-5 words of the last quotation on the page are your the title of your first album.

3. Go to Flickr's "Explore the last 7 days" and choose the third picture:
http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
This will be your album cover.

Put them all together and make an album cover.

Here's mine:

Now do yours and leave a comment with a link pointing to it...

Well, it could happen...

2009-02-17T07:37:00.003Z

Located where?

2009-02-16T15:28:00.003Z

This sign is to be found in the gents' changing room in the leisure centre at the Hilton Craigendarroch Hotel, Ballater, Scotland:

Thankfully, when I found the spin dryer, it was located beside the urinals...

Please offer your seat...

2009-02-10T22:09:00.002Z

I saw this sign on the train that goes from the terminal building to Gates 1-39 at Stansted Airport. I can't work out what its trying to tell me.

Is the message that a person with a baby should give up their seat for a disabled person, or is it the other way around?

Benq E72 Smartphone: An exercise in downsizing...

2009-02-07T07:22:00.005Z

My Toshiba Portege G910 gadget phone died last week. Its still in warranty and will be fixed, but its demise caused me to reconsider what it is I need in a phone. As I've said before, I used to have an i-Mate Jamin which I loved. Its primary failing was the lack of a keypad which made text entry on public transport near to impossible. So when, after two and a bit years of loyal service, it expired, I replaced it with the Toshiba which did all the stuff that the i-Mate did but also had 'mobile internet', GPS and a full QWERTY keyboard.

But. The Toshiba was a brick and not very user friendly in practice. It also crashed quite frequently and couldn't play videos. GPS was good (and very handy when driving through Germany last September). And although the keyboard is fantastic (best keyboard on a PDA that I've ever used) it is still quite clumsy for use on the go as it requires two-handed operation...

So. I've decided to downsize. The things I'm looking for in a phone are the abilities to:

make and receive calls, preferably in a user-friendly manner
send and receive texts and photo messages
sync contacts and appointments with MS Outlook
wi-fi for checking e-mail and basic web browsing (generally checking to see if trains are running late in the morning)
playback videos (nice, but not essential)
play music (similarly)

Also the ability to view MS Word documents and other e-mail attachments would be nice, but is not essential.

Things I don't really need in a phone:

GPS. If I ever need this (rarely) I can dig out my Portege (when its fixed).
Touch screen. I know this is the way things are going, but I found the touchscreen actually slowed down the process of doing most things on my previous phones. Give me buttons and well designed menus anytime.
Mobile internet. I rarely used this. GPRS and wi-fi were fine on the i-Mate.

So. I thought a 'Windows Mobile Standard' smartphone might be more suited to my needs than a 'Windows Mobile Pro' PDA phone. Its cheaper too.

So I got a Benq E72 phone from Expansys for £99 (actually £89 as I had a voucher; I have another if anyone is interested). SIM free, so my old Vodafone PAYG sim could go in.

Initial experince is great. It does all I want it to, is tiny compared to my previous PDA phones (actually smaller than any of my previous just-phones) and plays videos fine (with freeware divx player; I never liked the pre-installed windows media player). I'll let you know how I get on...

Freddie and me

2009-01-15T09:31:00.003Z

I'm not really one for reading biographies.

I don't think I've ever read an autobiography before.

I've certainly never ready a biography of someone I'd never heard of and who didn't actually live that interesting a life.

I'd never even seen a graphic-autobiography before.

But the story of a Queen-obsessed boy from the UK, moving to the USA and remembering important events in his life and how they relate to Queen concerts and album releases sounded like fun...

So is it any good?

Well, its alright. Obviously if you don't like comics / graphic novels, then this one is not for you. Also, if you don't really care much for the music of Queen then you'd probably best avoid it too. But if you shed a tear on the day when Freddie died and have ever sung along to a Queen song holding a (real or imagined) half microphone stand, then you'll probably relate to this guy and enjoy the book.

The artwork is good and the story is touching. But when the two most significant events in the life of the central character are the death of his grandmother and the death of Freddie Mercury, its not exactly the greatest or funniest story ever told.

Possibly the most interesting sub-plot in the book is the relationship between the central character (a Queen fan) and his younger sister (a Wham! fan), how they are divided by musical differences, then united watching the Freddie tribute concert. Given this sub-plot, the book actually ends on a really heartwarming note... which you'll have to read the book to find out.

Perhaps not as good as I'd hoped it would be, but well worth a read if you're a geeky Queen fan.

Same Difference - The Logo...

2009-01-13T00:00:00.000Z

Is it just me, or does the skewed D with the dots on it (presumably intended to look like a smiley face) actually make the word 'Difference' look like a caterpillar?

Yes, there's a 7 year old SD fan in my house at the moment... Sigh.

Be kind rewind

2009-01-10T22:54:00.003Z

Strange film.

I'm not sure this knows what kind of film it wants to be. It starts out with the set-up for a dumb comedy, but with not enough laughs. Then, about 25 minutes in, we get to the video remakes bit which is probably all that the audience knew about before watching the film. This starts off a bit dull (the Ghostbusters & Rush Hour 2 bit) but gets fairly entertaining for ten minutes or so of remakes which come thick and fast. But its clear that the remakes can't sustain interest for the rest of the film and so the movie switches genre and morphs into one of those light-hearted films full of quirky characters that you're supposed to care about. And the funny thing is that you do care. Finally, at the end, it turns into Cinema Paradiso and goes all arty on us.

So, in no way is this a coherent film. But it is entertaining and even a little moving. And probably about 20 minutes too long.

Jack Black is, of course, just playing Jack Black. If you can't tolerate him, then steer clear. If you can, this is fine.

About 20 minutes into it is a near perfect sight-gag that is just brilliant. Almost worth the rental price just for that moment of art. (Yes, I mean the bit with the 'camouflaged' boiler suit when the police turn up. Masterful.)

However, I'm unlikely to watch this again. Next...

Iron Man

2008-12-28T22:39:00.003Z

I never managed to see Iron Man at the cinema. Something to do with it being released in the same week as the birth of my son... By the time I was able to get back to the cinema, the film had finished its run.

But I got given it on DVD for Christmas.

It's great.

This was the summer of superhero movies, with The Dark Knight (which I did see in the cinema) generally being held up as the biggest and best. Well, the Dark Knight was certainly the biggest (and longest), but I'd say Iron Man is in competition with it for 'best'.

You see, all the best superhero movies are origin movies. Batman Begins was fabulous because it showed us what made Bruce Wayne become Batman, Spider-Man is better than both its sequels for the same reason. Likewise Superman.

And likewise Iron Man. It does all it needs to do with style, tells the story and then stops, before its overstayed its welcome. The Dark Knight, great as it was, was a bit flabby - it had too many bits, some of which were unnecessary.

The only thing that leaves me uneasy about the film is the ending. Because having ended like that, what will they do with the sequel? But next time I'll find out in the cinema...

Doctor Who: The Next Doctor

2008-12-28T22:26:00.003Z

Was it just me, or wasn't it very good?

I mean, it had its moments, but it just failed to live up to expectations.

Nothing was genuinely scary, the Cybercats were just silly and the ending was just, well, a bit of a let down.

But lets face it, none of the Christmas specials have been better than an average episode. Given that they seem to put more effort into the specials, you'd expect more.

I hope the other 'specials' we're getting in 2009 will be a bit more, erm, special than that.

C- Must try harder.

The future is finally here...

2008-12-04T11:32:00.003Z

Remember when you were a kid and people in sci-fi shows had really cool gadgets in their watches, like Dick Tracey's video watch, or Michael Knight talking to KITT through his watch...?

Well, that future has arrived.

A few years ago I heard tale of a mobile-phone-in-a-watch called 'Wristmo' - it looked really clumsy and was remarkably feature-free. And you only got it in Japan.
Now you can get something so much better that that, in the UK, for a surprisingly reasonable price. The sWaP watch. Get one (appropriately enough) from iwantoneofthose.com for a mere £250.

How cool is that? It is a watch combined with all the features of a contemporary mobile phone. So you can send and receive texts and multimedia messages, it can play mp3s or even mp4 video clips, it has a built in speaker / microphone so you can actually use it as a phone without attaching any extra bits. But if you want to attach stuff you can include a wired 'hands free' kit or even a bluetooth headset.

Here's the features list:

A watch, a mobile phone and a media centre all rolled into one.
Choose from a number of different watch faces stored in the sWap Watches' memory.
Pop your SIM card into the watch and it's easy to make and receive calls
1.5 inch TFT colour touch screen so you can watch movies!
Includes a hands free kit, Bluetooth headset and a stylus (plus one spare) for negotiating the touch screen.
The stylus is stored in a handy slot built in to the watch strap.
No need to buy a new SIM card - simply take it out of your mobile and pop it in the watch.
Receives SMS, MMS and can display recent and missed calls.
Store up to 300 contacts.
Built in alarm clock has 5 different tones to choose from.
Compatible with all UK networks except 3.
Record audio using the hands-free kit's mic and use the craftily concealed 1.3 megapixel camera to take pics and record video.
128MB memory can be expanded up to 2GB with a Micro SD card (not included).
Supports MP3, MIDI, WAV, AAC and MP4 files.
Standby time: 100 hours.
Talk time: 150-180mins.
Requires a 650mAh rechargeable battery (included).

Sounds fantastic! The only alarm bell I get while reading that list is the word 'stylus' - can it not be operated using fingers?

But can I justify buying one? No.

:o(

I already have a gadget phone that does all that and more. And I have an iPod. The combination of those two satisfies most of my portable gadget needs. And the sWaP doesn't do wi-fi, e-mail or mobile internet (well, it does GPRS, but...).

But it is highly cool.

Racist?

2008-11-14T13:06:00.005Z

I was listening to a podcast on the subject of racism yesterday. The speaker made the following statement (my paraphrase):

"Suppose you are walking alone along a city street, late at night. A group of five young men of the same ethnicity as each other are heading towards you, talking to each other and haven't noticed you. There are many reasons why you might feel apprehensive in such a scenario. But if you would feel more apprehensive if the group of men was from a different ethnic background to you than if they were the same, then you are (at least slightly) racist in your attitude."

I disagree with this statement.

I don't think I am racist (it wouldn't work well in my place of work - most of the people I work with are not from the UK and a significant portion are not of white European origin), but I know that some people (from across the whole spectrum of ethnicities) are. I know that there are such things as racially motivated attacks. There may be several reasons why a group of five young men might attack a lone walker late at night. Hopefully there are many more reasons why they might not. But if we factor racial reasons in there, then the hypothetical group of men who are ethnically different from me have one more possible reason why they should attack me than the hypothetical group who are of the same ethnicity. So if group A has more potential reasons to attack me than group B, then it is entirely justified to be slightly more apprehensive if group A is approaching me.

Or am I racist?

What do you think?

Booting an Eee PC with Windows from SD card?

2008-11-10T00:29:00.005Z

I've got one of these:

Running this OS:

(which is great for the kids)
But occasionally (for work purposes), I'd quite like it to run this OS:

(Which I have a legitimate copy of)
And I believe that the thing can be set up so that it can boot from one of these:

So why, oh why, can't I find any simple instructions on t'internet regarding how to actually go about setting this up?

Anybody got any good ideas?

Bearing in mind that I'm only a lower-level computer geek and haven't worked my way up the geek ranks very far...

Butter?

2008-11-05T15:11:00.002Z

I had a baked potato at lunchtime.

I have noticed that both of the food outlets near my work which sell baked potatoes make the same mistake.

They always ask "do you want butter on it?" to which I always reply "yes".

They then, invariably, put margarine on the potato. Not butter.

Are there people out there who really don't know the difference between the two? Do thay all work in baked potato shops? Why, oh, why?

Desktop of the week

2008-10-30T17:21:00.003Z

This photo was taken last Friday morning on Alvie estate, just south of Aviemore. The horse rider in the pink jacket is my daughter. And it makes a very nice desktop picture.

X-Factor: Diana's hand

2008-10-26T07:17:00.004Z

What is with Diana's left hand? She always has it up beside her cheek, sometimes palm forward, sometimes with the back to the camera. Even when they gave her a swing to hold on to, the hand kept popping back to its beside-cheek place... Somebody tell her not to!

Cosmos Rocking...

2008-10-12T07:17:00.008Z

I saw Queen + Paul Rodgers live at the SECC last night. Fabulous.

No support act, no hanging about, no delays. Queen + Paul Rodgers came on at 8pm, exactly as planned and played for two and a bit hours. Great set.

I saw Q+PR at Newcastle on the 'Return of the Champions' tour a couple of years ago, they were good then, but they were better this time.

The audience ranged in age from about 8 to about 70. There were lots of Queen fans from the 70s who had brought their kids - now also Queen fans - along with them. There was a 16 year old boy near me air-guitarring the whole time. And there was a great atmosphere, everyone was just there for some fun.

I've often found the atmosphere in concerts in Glasgow to be more aggressive than concerts elsewhere, with the possibility of violence lying closer to the surface than normal, but there was none of that last night. It was a very good-natured gig.

There were no major surprises in the set-list, they played more or less the same range of 'greatest hits' as last time with a few tracks from the new album thrown in for good measure. But the sequence of songs was good and worked really well.

Let's face it, they won me over by starting with 'Hammer to fall' ;o)

Highlights:
Hammer to fall, Radio Ga-ga, I want to break free, I want it all, '39, All right now and the drum solo...

Low points:

Guitar solo, C-lebrity, Seagull.

Up until last night, the best drum solo I had ever seen in concert was Mick Fleetwood's solo in the Fleetwood Mac concert in the Edinburgh Playhouse in 1988. That solo was innovative and entertaining in that, halfway through it, Mick Fleetwood left the drum kit and carried on 'drumming' on his electronic waistcoat and, erm, dangling balls... but that solo has now been surpassed.

Roger Taylor started the solo with a single drum and cymbal - this was out on the satellite stage - after a minute or two, bass player Danny Miranda pushed the electric double bass that he had played the last song on closer and Roger started drumming on the strings of the double bass. A few fingerings from Danny and they played a few classic basslines between them - the theme from Jaws, Another one bites the dust and Under pressure. After a few minutes of this, Roger returned to the single drum and cymbal combo and Danny left the stage. Every minute or so, a stage hand would appear with another drum or cymbal and add it to the kit, so the drumkit ended up being a full kit - after about 10 minutes of this. The culmination of the solo turned into 'I'm in love with my car' which was good.

Brian May's guitar solo had its moments too. Those moments were the bits when it turned into 'Bijou' (complete with a tape of Freddie singing the single verse, which was really good) and 'Last Horizon' - in other words, the best bits were when he played actual tunes. But the rest of the 10+ minutes solo was the usual heard-it-all-before 'Now I'm here' and 'Brighton Rock'-esque guitar grunting with heavy delays. This was probably cool in 1974 but he's been doing more or less the same solo for over three decades now and its getting boring! Brian, please stop it!

Another thing Brian should stop is doing 'Tie your mother down' as the second song in every concert. Clearly he must think that this is his greatest song, but you know what? It isn't. Its dull and predictable these days.

But those two Brian gripes aside, he does well for a man of his age - running all over the stage, not seeming to get a note wrong, singing the occasional song and backing vocal and apprently having a good time. Of course, he is surpassed by Paul Rodgers when it comes to overall fitness and looking good for his age - I'd go as far as to say that PR looks better and fitter now than he did in his 70s heyday. On the last tour, Roger looked half dead at the end of the night, this time round he looked fine, so I guess all that touring and drumming over the past few years has been good for him.

I had hoped that the experience of the 'Return of the Champions' tour would have got the necessity of playing a 'greatest hits' set out of their systems, and the band could let songs like 'Bohemian Rhapsody' and 'Fat bottomed girls' go and play some more obscure (or rarely played) songs from their back catalogue. Sadly, no 'White Queen' or 'Sail away sweet sister' sneaked into the setlist. And it was faintly disappointing to realise that we'll probably never hear the great Brian or Roger solo tracks live in concert again. Pity, 'Foreign sand' or 'Resurrection' would have been good thrown into the mix.

But these are minor gripes. The band played a good selection of great songs and did them well. The atmosphere was fab and everybody on stage and off was having a good time.

Yes, it cost me £62 all told (once you take booking fees, postage and car parking into account) but it was worth every penny.

You gotta be kidding...?

2008-10-09T21:51:00.000Z

The Cosmos Rocks

2008-10-06T15:17:00.007Z

I bought the new 'Queen + Paul Rodgers' CD on CD-WOW a couple of weeks ago. It still hasn't arrived. So the other day I got fed up and a copy from someone else...

Circumstances have contrived to make it very hard for me to listen to this album. The first issue was my wife, who actively dislikes Queen, so I didn't get to listen to it in the house. Then my car stereo decided to stop talking to my iPod. Hmph. But I have now managed to listen to it a few times. And I have formed an opinion:

Its quite good.

Considered as a Queen album its clearly not one of the greats. But maybe that's not a fair comparison. As a Paul Rodgers solo album featuring Brian May and Roger Taylor its pretty good. It ranks as generally better - and more consistent - than the rest of Brian May's solo output and is head and shoulders above almost everything Roger Taylor has done as a solo artist (or with 'The Cross'). So I'm happy with it.

Cosmos Rockin'
What's with the 'scary' voice at the start? It was off-putting the first few times I listened, and then I realised it actually is quite Queen-ish. They're clearly trying to sound like Queen here. Basically this is old-fashioned rock 'n' roll. And absolutely fine for all that. The title is a bit contrived, I get the feeling that the title and the song evolved independently and were tagged together, but I could be wrong. Sounds to me (haven't seen the writing credits yet) like a Brian May tune with Paul Rodgers lyrics.
Time to Shine
Nice. Another May/Rodgers composition, I guess.
Still Burnin'
This is a 'we're not dead yet...' song. I'm guessing its originally a Roger Taylor song with input from the other two. Album filler, but not too bad. Good backing vocals from Roger and the WWRY bit is good and appropriate.
Small
Lighters in the air. Quietly strummed ballad with anthemic sounding chorus. Good. But I'm sure we've heard the guitar solo somewhere before.
Warboys
This is what I feared the whole album would sound like. Uninspired Roger Taylor lyrics, OTT Brian May guitar and Paul Rodgers grunting about in the middle. Thankfully it only lasts for one song. I'm sure we've heard that guitar stuff somewhere before too. Not bad but far from great.
We Believe
Lighters back in the air. Yes, this world can be made a better place if only we all join together, grow our hair long and curly and wear clogs. Musically its a quite good album track, lyrically its a bit much. I suppose you can't have everything. This would have fitted quite nicely on 'Back to the Light' or 'Made in heaven', if you like those albums, you'll like this.
Call Me
This has to be the most chauvinist, egotistical sentiment on the album - "Call me if you need my love". Truly awful. Only a 70s rock star could write or song this. But musically its perfectly fine, really quite good actually. Sounds like a pure Brian May song.
Voodoo
Bluesy. One of the best songs on the album. I can't really imagine Freddie singing this one.
Some Things That Glitter
Surely the most nonsensical opening line on the album: "Once I loved a butterfly, don't wonder how, don't ask me why...". Yet another ballad. Yet another perfectly serviceable song, neither great not bad. Guitar work kind of reminiscent of the late 70s Queen stuff.
C-Lebrity
Another Roger lyric. Rock song by numbers. Scores a 'C-' try harder next time.
Through the Night
Guitar ballad. Something annoys me about the way that PR sings the word 'through' every time. And as it occurs many times in this song its hard to get past it. "Throooeoeoooough". But there's lots of nice guitar bits in there too. A bit like 'Nothin but blue', in a good way.
Say It's Not True
Well, we've heard this before. In this version it comes across more like "Foreign Sand" than I'd noticed before. But as Foreign Sand is Roger's best solo track since Freddie died, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Its a small song, more suited to Roger's and Brian's voices and kind of loses its 'smallness' when PR's big voice takes over.
Surf's Up... School's Out!
A jam session that should really be a single b-side, not on the album. Quite a lot of cliche rolled into one song.
Small Reprise
The guitar ballad style reprise to 'Small' (track 4). Not really a track in its own right.

So. If you like Brian May's solo work, you'll almost certainly like this. If you like Paul Rodgers stuff, you'll probably like this. If you're a Queen fan, you might like this. But its not really Queen.

Marillion: Happiness is the Road [first thoughts]

2008-09-22T10:36:00.005Z

Remember last year when Marillion's "Somewhere else" album came out? I reviewed it as "adequate. Nothing more."
Later last year I saw them in concert and reviewed the experience as "disappointing."
A month or two ago Marillion gave away a song from their new album for free. My response to this was that it was "mediocre. As bland as most of the last album was. "

So it would be fair to say that I didn't have high hopes for the new album...

The album isn't officially out yet. I'll be released next month. But, in an effort to beat P2P file sharers at their own game, Marillion have given away the album for nothing online. Find it here. So in return for giving them my e-mail address (which they had anyway) I have legally downloaded all of the new double album.

And

it

is

very

good!

Ha! Bet you weren't expecting that! I wasn't even expecting that. First impressions (I've only listened to it twice, thus far) are that it is a far more coherent album than anything since Anorak, its certainly better than Somewhere Else and possibly better than Marbles. Its fairly mellow throughout although some of the longer songs build and build to something noisier and more energetic than they start off sounding.

I'll give a more detailed review of it after a number of listens, but it'll be a pretty positive review!

And for what its worth, I think that "whatever is wrong with you" is one of the weaker songs on there.

New Heart album in the pipeline...

2008-09-04T11:29:00.003Z

I'm excited. In a recent interview, Nancy Wilson says that the new Heart album is scheduled for an 'early-09' release.

You may not be excited by this. But that is probably because you (like oh so many people) don't believe me when I say that Heart's 2004 album 'Jupiter's Darling' is still the best rock record of the millennium so far. It is. Anyone who says otherwise has simply never heard it.

So I'm expecting great things, especially as guitarist and co-song-writer Craig Bartock is still on board.

Here's hoping.

Oh, and a couple of UK tour dates to promote the new album would be fab too.

I know what's inside a television...

2008-09-03T06:29:00.002Z

A few days ago my four year old daughter and my wife had this conversation:
"Mummy, what is inside a television?"
"You should ask Daddy that"
"Does Daddy know what is inside a television?"
"Yes"
"Good"

And that was that. She has since then never asked me what is inside a television, she simply seems content in the knowledge that I know.

Armed with that knowledge, she has since been overheard asking other kids at her nursery "Does your Daddy know what is inside a television?" - but other four year olds don't seem to care about this issue.

Man flu

2008-08-25T05:23:00.004Z

I have man flu. OK, so its really just a cold, but 'man flu' sounds so much more entertaining.

Here are my top tips for how to fight 'man flu':

Don't use those 'cold & flu' combined pain relief and decongestant remedies like Lemsip (well, don't use them during the day, a Lemsip at night is OK). Because what happens is one out of the pain relief or the decongestant runs out of effectiveness before the other and you end up having to wait a few hours before you can have another.
Contac. I don't know if the rest of the world has this, but in the UK, these are the best. Slow release capsules of pseudoephadrine hydrochloride. Basically, its a decongestant that actually works for about 10 hours. Take one when you wake up and another about 10 or 11 hours later.
Pain killers. Ibuprofen works best for me. Take as often as you're allowed to.
Zinc. Someone told me about this a few years back and I was sceptical, but it seems to actually work. As soon as you feel the onset of a cold, start taking Zinc supplements. This boosts your immune system. It doesn't diminish the symptoms of a cold, but it does (appear to) shorten the duration of a cold. Since I've been taking Zinc during colds, I can only remember one cold that was bad for more than two days (sure, there's a few days of sniffling after that, but only two days of blocked noses and aches).
Eat chili and drink orange juice. Just because.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

2008-08-24T06:27:00.008Z

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

A man called George Lucas wrote and directed
a kids film called Star Wars. An entire generation
of kids (and some grown ups) loved it. He followed
it up with a more 'grown up' sequel. And everyone
loved it. He followed that with a more kid

friendly sequel and some folk weren't happy...

Some years later he made another kids film and most of his original audience (now in their late 20s and 30s) complained - because it was a kids film. So he made the next two films a bit more grown up, and still people weren't happy. Sigh, some people.

So now, the new Star Wars film is out, and its unashamedly a kids film. And of course people are unhappy. Except the kids, obviously. And kids at heart, like me.

Because if you accept that this movie is a kids film, you might enjoy it. A lot.

What was wrong with the three 'prequels'? In my opinion, it was largely Jar-Jar in 'The Phantom Menace' and the love story in the other two. This film has neither of those two elements.

Its just a simple story of Jedis doing Jedi stuff set in the middle of lots of battles and other action. This is what the kids want. Its great.

The central plot (Anakin and his new padawan are sent to find and rescue the baby son of Jabba the Hutt) did feel a bit like the sort of story you would have got in the old 'Dungeons & Dragons' cartoon in the 80s, but so what? It was wrapped in an all-action, fantastic looking, fully theatrical experience.

I know my baby son is only 3 months old, but I'm already looking forward to watching this with him when he's bigger. (Let's face it, it'll be a long time before I let him watch Episode III).

This film is no more or less than 'Attack of the Clones, part II'. If the thought of that fills you with dread, steer clear. If that appeals to you, you'll like this.

The only bit that seemed a bit odd and out of place was the character of Jabba the Hutt's uncle - who seems to be a giant-slug drag queen in a dodgy part of town. Um, where did that come from, and why?

But I'm really looking forward to the TV series now. Bring it on...

Doctor Who in the cinema?

2008-08-24T06:24:00.000Z

See this news story....

Could be fun. ;o)

War of the Worlds (one man show)

2008-08-22T08:49:00.005Z

"Take a look around you
at the world we've come to know,
Does it seem to be much more
than a crazy circus show?
But maybe from the madness
something beautiful will grow,
In a brave new world,
With just a handful of men.
We'll start, we'll start all over again..."

Just a handful of men? How about only one man?

No one would have believed in the first years of the 21st century that Jeff Wayne's musical epic "The War of the Worlds" could be performed in under an hour at the Edinburgh Fringe. No one could have dreamed that it could be done by one man. Few men even considered the possibility that Jeff Wayne himself would give permission for such a show. And yet in one of the Niddry Street vaults of the 'Underbelly' venue, a mind immeasurably superior to ours dreamed up an excellent show and slowly but surely he performed this play before us.

I think it would be fair to say that I'm a fan of "War of the Worlds". I love the H.G. Wells book. I used to have a tape of the talking book of it (in the 1980s) which I wore out through over-playing. I love Jeff Wayne's musical version of it. I like the 1953 movie. I have a tape of Orson Welles's 1938 radio show. I loved the recent movie starring Tom Cruise. Basically, I like it. A lot.

So when I saw it was on at the Fringe this year, it was my only 'must see' show. I went to see it yesterday. I wasn't sure I was going to like it - how could one man perform the story? How could one man sing the songs? (was he going to sing the songs or was the tape just going to play them?) Was he going to try and play any of the music? Hang on, there's at least one female role in there, how can one man perform 'Spirit of Man' (a duet between Phil Lynott and Julie Covington on the original musical)? But I went and found out.

The venue ("Underbelly's Baby Belly 1") is one of the Niddry Street Vaults - supposedly one of the most haunted places in Edinburgh. Its basically a stone and brick cavern, wide enough for ten chairs with an aisle up the middle and deep enough for a stage (circa 10 feet deep) and about 20 rows of seats. The vaulted ceiling is quite high up and was covered in sheets for the Fringe. Basically, its an atmospheric place. The audience were ushered in at the start of the allotted time with "The Eve of the War" already playing. About half the seats in the place were filled. But it was a Thursday at 4:20pm, so that's not too bad.

Once we were all sitting in place, Pip Utton ran up the aisle, leaped onto the stage and began performing with some of the most iconic words in English literature "No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century..."

I'm always the same when watching plays. The opening few minutes are always a disappointment to me. I'm like "is that it? Just a man in a waistcoat on stage..." this feeling of slight disappointment came to a head when he got to the (almost as iconic) "The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one he said..." - yes, he sung them. But while he hit all the right notes, the man is clearly not a singer. And his timing on some of the words was off slightly. Oh dear.

But then we got into the meat of the story, the cylinder landing on Horsell Common, and the ensuing events, and I was captivated. Next time he sang I realised he was acting in song, not singing. He wasn't aiming to reproduce the vocal performances of the original musical version, he was telling the story and occasionally doing so in song. Thus, his performance of Forever Autumn, while not as musically perfect as the CD was still beautiful and actually more moving than the original. You could feel the loss in the guy's voice: "A gentle rain falls softly on my weary eyes, as if to hide a lonely tear, my life will be forever autumn, 'cause you're not here..." Heartbreaking - in a way that the CD never is.

Of course, to bring the show down to about a 50 minute run time, some of the story and songs had to be abbreviated and one of the songs dropped entirely. Given that this was a one man show it was quite reasonable that 'Spirit of Man' was dropped and the character of Beth, the Parson's wife was lost from the story. That was a shame - as I really like that song - but I guess it had to be done. Thus the performer had only three primary roles to play: The un-named journalist who narrates the story (i.e. Richard Burton in the original recording), the artilleryman (David Essex) and the Parson (Phil Lynott). While performing the character of the artilleryman, he used an accent very similar to David Essex's from the original recording, but also somehow managed to convey a different character through body language. Surprisingly, the Parson was portrayed using a Welsh accent. This worked rather well.

The performance was generally excellent, if I hadn't known every word of the script fairly well I'd only have noticed him fluff his lines once (actually I noticed three deviations from the original words, but two of them would have passed the non geeks by entirely). The only prop on stage was a small 'hill' on the right hand side, but its amazing how much of the atmosphere of the story can be conveyed by a masterful storyteller and some careful use of green, red and white spotlights.

So all in all, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Highly recommended (there's 3 days left, so hurry up). And I'm now - more than ever - inclined to go to the full-scale 30th anniversary tour next year. Tickets on sale in October. If its half as good as the one man show, it'll be great.

The way it should be is not the way it is...

2008-08-18T15:24:00.003Z

Why isn't life simple?

When I was a young teenager, my local radio station played the music I wanted to hear and a local department store sold the kind of clothes I wanted (my Mum) to buy (for me).
When I was an older teenager, BBC Radio 1 played the music I wanted to hear and Top Man sold the clothes I wanted to buy.
As an undergrad student, there wasn't really a radio station that played what I wanted to hear and clothes came from Burtons.
As a postgrad student, Virgin radio played the music I wanted to hear and River Island was the shop of choice.
As a late 20 something, Virgin continued to play the music I wanted to hear, but I found myself shopping in Next for clothes.
In my early 30s I found myself listening to BBC Radio 2 (during the day, never in the evenings) and clothes seemed to come from Gap or Next.
Now in my late 30s, I find myself listening to Planet Rock or 96.3 Rock Radio (thanks to a DAB radio) and clothes seem to come mostly from Gap or Fat Face.

Why couldn't things like radio stations and clothes shops just make life easy for us? Why don't they just age with us? Every 5 years or so, the BBC should invent a new radio station which should age along with its listeners. And a new clothes chain should appear, targeting one age group and then aging with that age group. It would be a much better system.

You see, as I approach the transition from thirtysomething into fortysomething (not for another couple of years, mind) I find myself wondering where I'll be buying clothes from and what I'll be listening to in a few years time...

Extreme: Saudades de Rock

2008-08-07T12:48:00.003Z

Its a bad title. Apparently 'saudades' (pronounced 'sow-dodge') means something like 'vague nostalgic yearning' - a nostalgic yearning for rock. Unfortunately, this is a feeling you are left with after having listened to the album.

In their time together (the first time around) Extreme managed to produce two excellent albums bookended by two which were OK, with occasional flashes of greatness. After they split in 1996, Gary Cherone went on to various stage musical roles, was briefly a member of Van Halen, recorded a depressing album called 'Exit Elvis' by 'Tribe of Judah' and then released a really quite bad (and very middle of the road) EP under the name of 'Cherone'. Nuno Bettencourt on the other hand has had a quite interesting 'solo' career. One album released under his own name, two under the name of 'Mourning Widows', one CD and an EP under the name of 'Population 1' and a CD under the name of 'Dramagods' - all of these (IMO) either very good (Nuno CD, 2nd Mourning Widows, Dramagods) or excellent (1st Mourning Widows CD, Population 1). I think its fair to say that Gary needs Nuno more than Nuno needs Gary. But neither had great post-Extreme financial success. So the reunion was inevitable.

And so, 13 years since the last Extreme album we have "Saudades de Rock". As you'd expect, this album has many bits which are basically the band trying to prove that they're still the band they once were. Also it has many bits that sound like the sort of stuff Nuno has been doing on his own for the past decade. But sadly it doesn't have anything new and fresh, its all nostalgia and stuff we've already heard before.

Track by track:

Star: This song is here to proclaim that this is the same band you used to like. Guitar riffs and verses are basically the distilled essence of 'Pornograffitti' while the harmonies on the chorus are more like 'III sides'. I think in time the chorus will get really annoying, but on the first few listens its quite a good song.
Comfortably dumb: Another song in the funk-rock style of 'Pornograffitti'. But not that interesting.
Learn to love: Oh. Another song in the style of 'Pornograffitti'. Yawn. It also instills a bit of the Zep-influenced 'Punchline' album. By this point I'm getting bored of hearing Gary Cherone scream rather than singing.
Take us alive: Thankfully this track is more interesting and fun than the three that have preceded it. This is flavoured with 'tex-mex' seasoning. I could have said 'country' there, but thankfully it doesn't go that far. I like this one a lot.
Run: Not very interesting, but at least this is in the style of 'III sides' a bit more. Variety is good.
Last hour: One of those quiet-shouty-quiet-shouty type songs. I quite like it, but fear that I might tire of it.
Flower man: If you've heard Nuno's solo album you'll recognise this song as basically 'Two Weeks in Dizkneelande' with different lyrics. If you've not heard the Nuno track, this will probably be one of the best tracks on the album for you.
King of the ladies: Oh dear, this is embarrassing. More nostalgia. With bad lyrics.
Ghost: Starts like a ballad, this album should have had one before now, but builds in beat as the song goes on. Nice piano and vocal performance. You can see the Queen influence quite clearly.
Slide: Nice and funky album filler track. But quite good for that.
Interface: This song is on Nuno's last album, 'Love' by Dramagods. Its a nice song, but the new version doesn't really add anything to the existing version.
Sunrise: Slow funk-rock with a touch of Zep. Degenerates into stereotypical Extreme for the solo. But one of the better tracks on the album for all that.
Peace (Saudade): Saving the best for last. Quiet, slow and beautiful. This is the stand-out track on the album. Shame it comes so late in the day.
Americocaine (Demo 1985): A funny way to end the 'comeback' album, with an old song that wasn't good enough to put on any of the earlier albums. Just sounds like late 80s album filler material.

So, all in all, a disappointing album with a couple of highlights. I think I'll still go and see them in concert when they get to Scotland (Glasgow Carling Academy, Sat 15th November) but I'll be hoping for a greatest hits set, not a set full of the new stuff.

But maybe the album will grow on me...

Toshiba Portégé G910 gadget phone review

2008-08-07T06:37:00.005Z

For over the past two years I've had an i-Mate JAMin PDA phone as a constant companion. I really like it. It had all of the things I was looking for in a PDA/phone/gadget when it came out, and it has generally been great to use ever since. But it is getting a bit old and tired, scratched and scuffed and doesn't behave itself as much as it used to (it hardly ever needed reset for the first 18 months or so, then got a bit crotchety). So I've got a new gadget phone. But before I tell you about that, I need to put it in context of the JAMin.

Most people use a phone primarily as a phone, or at least as a text-machine. But I don't get too many incoming calls on my mobile and make even less outgoing calls. My previous phones had been primarily text-machines with occasional calls. Upgrading to the JAMin meant my 'phone' became primarily an e-mail and text machine, with occasional calls. The thing has wi-fi, so the i-Mate became my primary means of checking and responding to e-mail when I was at home. You can also browse the web with it, and it was regularly used to check for the (late) running times of the trains to and from Dalmeny station, read the BBC news and even shop on eBay and Amazon. But most websites are quite annoying on a 240 x 320 screen, even if you rotate the device and make it 'landscape orientation'.

But one of the greatest features of the phone was as an entertainment device. Occasionally as an mp3 player, but more commonly (on planes and trains) as a video device. Load up TCPMP and a DivX movie (resized to 320 x 240 or the processor couldn't cope) and its great for passing the time on short European flights or trains across Scotland. OK, the screen's not as big as an iPod Touch or iPhone, but its bigger (though the same resolution) than the standard iPod Video.

However, that's not to say the device was perfect. It has a few limitations. The main three (according to the way I use the thing) were:

The stylus text entry is clumsy at best, becomes hard on trains and impossible on moving buses. I have an external bluetooth keyboard, but you can't just pull that out to send a text from a bus.
If you keep the thing in your pocket (as I do) you need some form of hard case to protect the screen. This makes it more bulky.
There's only so much you can fit onto a 320 x 240 screen.

And since I got the JAMin some other cool features have become standard on phones like this, including GPS and 'mobile internet' via 3G and HSDPA services.

All this by means of introduction.

After reading up about all the current gadget phones, the best one - for my purposes - seemed to be the Toshiba Portégé G910 which came out in May. On paper it appeared to do everything the JAMin did, but looked like it would score above the JAMin on these criteria:

It has a QWERTY keyboard, so texting on a bus becomes possible.
Its clamshell, so the screen is protected when the thing is in your pocket.
It has an 800 x 480 WVGA screen, much better for websurfing.
It also has 'mobile internet' for surfing and e-mail outwith wi-fi zones.
It has GPS for satnav purposes.
It has Windows Mobile 6 (pro) rather than 5 (pro).

But, after three weeks of use, does it live up to expectations?

Well, mostly. The keyboard and screen are brilliant. Text entry is a breeze on the full keyboard, either with two thumbs when held in your hands or even with several fingers when the thing is on a desk. This is unquestionably the best keypad on a current PDA phone that I've seen or used, way better than the HTC TYTN II and all flavours of Blackberry. You can actually write sensible length documents on this if you want.

And the screen is great. You can adjust the default text size so that you can balance the amount of information to text size to fit your particular eyesight level (I've opted for small, but not smallest text). In the web browser you can switch 'hi res' mode on and finally get to see web pages in their entirety on a PDA screen without excessive amounts of scrolling left to right. Fab.

But. The video drivers aren't very good. I was really looking forward to the larger screen for on-flight video watching, but until Toshiba updates the video drivers, watching video isn't really an option. The screen seems to refresh only two or three times a second, which is way too slow for sensible video watching.

The GPS/satnav is great - I bought 'Route 66 Mobile 8' which is apprently the only software that works on the G910. So far I've not been to anywhere I don't know, so can't really rate it in practice, but the thing was able to tell me how to get home the other night...

Mobile internet is also great (except exactly where I live where there is no 3G coverage) and e-mail and web pages load much faster than on GPRS on the JAMin.

So, all in all, its a great device with one major (from my point of view) failing, its inablility to play videos.

I also have some very minor nit-picks which I may as well mention:

I don't like the stylus. Its too fiddly and thin. And stylus entry on the screen is awkward. Thankfully there's not much stylus usage needed on a device with such a great keypad, but you still occasionally have to use it. To overcome this problem I've installed Spb Mobile Shell software (only $30 - which is great value) which makes WM6pro far more fingertip friendly - most operations can be done by using my fingers on the screen, not having to use the stylus.
The clamshell opens the wrong way. I realise that they have designed the thing so that the 'front' of the device is kind of like the front of a pocket diary, so the hinge is on the left, but to my hands the device feels like it should open the other way. That would also place the camera behind the screen, rather than on the base, where it is kinda clumsily placed just now. Also, when in a call, opening the clamshell should automatically put the thing into speakerphone mode, which it doesn't.
You can't rotate the screen. It only operates in 'landscape' mode. Which is fine most of the time, but it means all your old software which assumes a portrait display can't be used anymore. So my much used Sudoku game has had to be replaced with a far inferior version which works in landscape mode.
The microSD card isn't SDHD, so 2Gb is the upper limit. Shame.
Finally, the camera is badly positioned and tricky to operate. Its also only a 2M pix camera, which is way below standard in these days of LG Viewtys. It really feels like they thought 'oh, and I suppose we have to have a camera as well, oh well, stick one in somewhere...'

I've read some reviews saying this device is unusable due to failings with WM6.0 and really needs 6.1 - can't say I've had many problems. I did neet to soft-reset it a few times in the first couple of days, but since then I've only had to reset about once a week. I can live with that. Not as stable as the JAMin was, but stable enough. Apparently it is now shipping with 6.1 installed.

Where about on the internet do you live?

2008-07-30T12:14:00.002Z

The Dark Knight

2008-07-28T06:58:00.004Z

Batman Begins was a very special movie. Its one of those movies that is greater than the sum of its parts, which is especially impressive when each one of its parts is great to start off with. If you want to see how to make a great superhero movie, watch Batman Begins. The first hour and a bit is as close to perfect as it gets and by the time it descends into mere brilliance towards the end you're so caught up in the plot and the action that you hardly notice.

So, as you might have gathered, I had very high expectations of the sequel. What I have to say should remain spoiler free...

Like its predecessor, The Dark Knight is also a film made up of great parts. However, for reasons I still haven't completely worked out, the final film ends up being slightly less than the sum of those parts. That's not to say that its not very, very good, its just to say that it's not as awesomely, gob-smackingly brilliant as it should be. I think maybe it was a little bit two long, or possibly because there were a couple of non-brilliant links in the chain, but somewhere along the way The Dark Knight loses one star out of the five stars it should have had. But its still a four star movie - way better than average.

Perhaps it fell partially into the same trap that Tim Burton's original Batman movie did - its not a film about Batman, in many ways he seems to be a supporting character. Batman Begins was the first Batman film that was actually about Batman, everyone else in it was just scenery. This film isn't about any single character really. Its not even a film about the Joker (which Tim Burton's original movie was), he too is a supporting character.

It's a film about ideas, not people. This was demonstrated most when it got to the scene where two people were in trouble and Batman only had time to save one. This was two thirds of the way through the film yet, by this point, I didn't actually care enough about one of the characters (I knew what was going to happen to the other character because I've read the comics, seen the old films, etc.) to be bothered either way if Batman got to them in time, yet this was supposed to be the emotional core of the film. Likewise when we got to the bit with the two boats, I really didn't care either way.

But. Visually its stunning. It has so many fab moments that I can forgive its other weaknesses. The whole hospital scene was outstanding, full of humour and perfectly timed. Yes, it was a 'set piece' but so what, it was a great set piece.

Heath Ledger was brilliant - he produced a totally believable, utterly captivating, psycho. In fact, there was nothing of Heath Ledger there, I genuinely forgot (even given the hype) who was playing the part and just watched the Joker on screen.
Gary Oldman was excellent. Hopefully he'll get a bigger role if/when they do another Batman movie.
Christian Bale was side-lined a bit, but still gave a convincing performance as both Batman and Bruce Wayne. They did a silly thing with the Batman voice though.
Maggie Gyllenhaal was OK. To be honest, I preferred Katie Holmes in the role, but MG was OK. I thought MG was fab in the last film I saw her in ("Stranger than Fiction") and - after watching that film - would even go as far as to say that she has the sexiest smile in Hollywood, but sadly the smile was not used much here and we had the lip-trembling face instead, which just never really grabbed me. Sorry.
Aaron Eckhart was good too, although when he started getting nasty before his transformation, I didn't really believe it, it didn't quite work. He was in the role of the 'White Knight' after all.

I think I will return to the cinema to see it again, given the opportunity. Actually, I'd quite like to go and see the IMAX version - six of the big action scenes were shot in IMAX. Hopefully the hospital scene was one of them, that would be awesome. I'll also get the DVD when it comes out, even though I don't have much time for DVD watching these days. I'll make the time.

So, after one viewing, The Dark Knight is currently ranking as my 4th favourite superhero movie after Superman (1978), Batman Begins (2005) and X2 (2003).

Musical roundup...

2008-07-25T01:00:00.000Z

After months and months of buying nothing, somehow the stars have aligned and I found myself buying three new CDs this week. So, in order of increasing awesomeness, here are my thoughts on them:

Revelation by Journey

Journey have had a bit of a hit and miss career. They started in the early 70s, the core of the band being the musicians left behind by Carlos Santana when he went solo from 'Santana'. They pootled about for a few years flirting with various (unpopular) musical styles before recruiting Steve Perry as their front man and opting for a 'radio friendly', pop-rock, AOR sound. Then they went massive. A few years on and keyboard player Greg Rolie had had enough of touring and suggested that Jonathan Cain replace him. They did this and Journey went on to produce the finest AOR album of all time, 1981's 'Escape'. Things kind of slowed down and drifted apart in the late 80s, but then they reconvened for a 'reunion' album 'Trial by Fire' in 1996. But Steve Perry was unable to tour for health reasons, so the classic lineup dissolved once again.

In 2001, Journey re-emerged with a new lead singer, Steve Augeri, and a fantastic (IMO) album called 'Arrival'. This was followed up by 'Generations' a few years later, which was quite similar to Arrival in many ways. But there were problems with Steve Augeri's vocal capabilities on tour, so the band eventually fired him and went looking for a new singer.

So now we have the new album 'Revelation' with new lead singer Arnel Pineda. The CD release is a double album, disc 1 being entirely new songs and disc 2 being a 'greatest hits' compilation - but all re-recorded versions with Pineda singing lead vocals.

The new songs are great. Pineda can certainly sing, and while his voice is reminiscent of the Steves that have gone before, it is also distinctive enough. So vocally and musically things are fine. Its just that the songwriting is very much in the same track as Arrival and Generations were. There's nothing bad here, but there's nothing particularly new either. Some songs really do sound very similar to others that have gone before. If you love Journey but haven't heard Arrival, then you'll find this to be a great album. But if you already love Arrival, there's nothing really to be gained by getting this. Maybe it'll grow on me though.

I have a problem with the re-recorded songs though. What is the point? Steve Perry had a highly distinctive voice with great range and power. Pineda is a good singer, but not a better one, so his vocals add nothing new to the old songs. And its not as if the band opted to 're-interpret' the old songs, they just went for re-creation. So there really is nothing special here. The CD is fine, but if you know the old songs then the minor differences will just niggle at you.

Good but not great.

Silver Spoons and Broken Bones by Stone Gods

I reviewed a Stone Gods gig back in January. They're the band that are basically The Darkness without Justin Hawkins. Well, their debut album came out a couple of weeks ago. And its pretty good really. This is a wall of hard-rocking, old-school metal with chunky guitar sounds and riffs & solos aplenty. Stone Gods sound better on CD than live in a basement, and they certainly look better when you can't see them.

This is heavier and harder and more serious than The Darkness ever were, but there are still moments of humour that come shining through. This won't achieve the crossover success that The Darkness had, none of these songs will be troubling the airwaves or the singles chart, but this will go down well with folk who identify themselves as metalheads already.

Rise by The Answer

This is the first time that Amazon.co.uk has 'recommended' something to me that I hadn't previously heard of and turned out to be exactly my kind of thing when I investigated further. This is a fabulous album.

Once upon a time there was a genre called 'blues-rock', I'm not sure when it died out, but certainly there haven't been any great blues-rock albums out for a long time. In the 70s all the big rock bands dabbled with blues-rock and of course the biggest in the genre was Led Zep. Somewhere in the 80s, blues and rock parted company. Occasionally folk like Gary Moore would jump from one to the other, but few bands kept one foot in each camp - except for aging blues-rockers like Paul Rodgers.

So I have no idea how a band like The Answer can suddenly explode on the scene - in 2007 - all big riffs and blues vocals. I think what mut have happened is this - at some point in the late 80s, the former members of Led Zep, Free and early Whitesnake must have been sowing their wild oats in Northern Ireland. As a consequence of these liaisons, four boys were born who grew up to form a band. That band is The Answer.

From about 30 seconds in to track 1 on the CD, I knew I was going to love this. And the album kept going with great song after great song. The bonus disc on the special edition release has some great stuff on there too, but its not quite as coherent as the entire first disc is.

And special mention has to be made of the track "Preachin'" which is some old time blues and has an opening line which made me burst into laughter (on the bus) the first time I heard it. Genius.

If you like your rock with a little touch of blues, you'll love this album.

And there's more to come. Extreme are back next week with a new album called "Saudades de Rock" which is an odd name, but hopefully a good album. Will let you know.

Marillion: Whatever is wrong with you?

2008-07-23T11:12:00.002Z

Marillion have just given away a free edit of one of the new tracks from their forthcoming album.

Its called "Whatever is wrong with you" and can be downloaded from the website of the same name:

www.whateveriswrongwithyou.com

Its, erm, mediocre. As bland as most of the last album was. If this is typical of the stuff they've just recorded, I'm not going to like the new album. :o(

Scientifically proven fact!

2008-07-23T06:32:00.003Z

It is a scientifically proven fact that whenever someone uses the phrase "scientifically proven fact" what they really mean is 'I heard someone say this and I believed them, but I haven't put in the time and effort to find any references for it' or possibly 'I read it on wikipedia'.

It is self-evident that when someone uses the phrase "it is self-evident" what they really mean is 'this is my interpretation of the facts and if you come to different conclusions then you are wrong'.

And 99% of statistics that claim that "99%" of some group are united on an issue are completely made up.

I've heard two of these abused in the past 24 hours and it can't be long before someone uses the third...

Terry Pratchett's 'The Colour of Magic' (TV adaptation)

2008-07-17T09:51:00.005Z

I managed to catch up with some of those movies and TV programmes that I'd recorded-but-not-yet-watched when I was on holiday recently. So I've now completed Smallville series 7 (generally fine, but got silly towards the end), Lost series 4 (interesting but a bit annoying) and I finally got around to watching the TV adaptation of Terry Pratchett's 'The Colour of Magic' which was on Sky at Easter time.

Having seen last year's 'Hogfather' adaptation (it was OK, but not nearly as magical as the book) I was vaguely intrigued to see what they would do next, and was a bit disappointed to discover that they'd picked one of TP's weaker books to adapt. 'Why didn't they at least go for 'The Light Fantastic', its a better story?' I wondered to myself.

But now that I've watched it I know that the TV adaptation is a blend of the first two Discworld books, 'The Colour of Magic' and 'The Light Fantastic', which (a) means that the source material is better than simply doing TCoM alone, and (b) means that more has to be chopped out to fit to a 4 hour running time (including adverts).
So, it was OK. It was faithful to the story, with all the wackiness still intact, but once again the witty narrative that drives all of TP's books along (particularly the early ones) is missing. I'm not sure how this could be translated from the page to the screen, but I'm sure it could have been done somehow.

I'm not sure what I would have thought of the story if I hadn't read the books. The plot jumped about a bit and there were many parts of the story - which were emphasised and developed in the books - which just had to be briefly mentioned in passing. So the sub-plot with Cohen and his troll teeth 'din-chewers' happened, but it was stripped of all its humour. The bit where Twoflower explains the concept of insurance to the publican happened, but was stripped of any real meaning. The bit where Treymon reads all the 8 spells and his mind collapses happened, but was stripped of all the horror of the 'nameless things' that take him over, and so on. So yes, it ticked all the boxes it needed to tick, but without knowing the story first, I'm not sure it would play very well. Sadly the sub-plot with the magical shop and the cursed shop keeper was dropped.

Or maybe it was fine if you saw it without having read the books, maybe its only because I know the gems that have been cut out that I'm a little bit disappointed.

But. The biggest problem I have with this adaptation was the casting. As I'm sure is clear to everyone, David Jason is not Rincewind, clearly Nigel Planer should have been cast in that part. Anyone who thinks otherwise is simply wrong. Likewise, Sean Astin is not Twoflower. Tim Curry, on the other hand, was perfectly cast. And the Librarian was great.

So it was fine, looked good, ticked all the right boxes but was a bit muddled and soulless. But I will watch the next one when they do it. But why, oh why are they not doing 'Mort', 'Wyrd Sisters' or 'Guards! Guards!' next?

Doctor Who: 'The Stolen Earth' & 'Journey's End' (S4E12 & 13)

2008-07-16T07:03:00.004Z

And so it ends (for this year at least). I've got to say that this has been the best of the four NuHu series so far, and by quite a margin. That's not to say that the previous three series weren't good, but is to say that this series was great throughout, with only a few dips towards 'alrightness' along the way.

If you haven't seen these episodes yet, don't read on, I'm sure to spoil something for you.

This two-parter followed the pattern laid down by previous Doctor Who two-parters in that it tried to achieve far too much in the first part. Too many characters converging and too many things going on. You put Donna and Martha together in one episode and we care. You put Donna and Rose together in one episode and we care. You put Donna and Martha and Jack and Rose and Sarah-Jane and the Doctor together and try to fit a plot into 45 minutes and we're struggling. By necessity the Torchwood team, Sarah-Jane's son and Mickey and Jackie got sidelined and we didn't have the time to actually care about any of them, which is a shame.

Also, the production team seems to think it is necessary to put the entire world in jeopardy at the end of every Doctor Who series. I'm not sure it really is. You can still pack a two parter with action and an emotional punch even if the entire world has not been ripped out of time and space.
But still. The Daleks are back. Yay! Davros is back. Double Yay! All the recent companions that we know and love are back. Yay! And then the best cliffhanger of any NuHu yet. What will happen next?

But still, I do agree with SFX (.co.uk) who said it was like an extended movie trailer - lots of snippets of what should be a much longer story. But the first half was clearly just there to be a set up for the second...

... and that was just fab. Davros showing the Doctor how he used his companions was a touch of genius, the Daleks talking in German was brilliant and the DoctorDonna was great. Everything that could have been wrong about Catherine Tate being cast as a companion thrown into one scene and somehow tranformed into pure class. 10 out of 10, Russell T.

Then thrown in a few silly bits and a pretty ropey plot whereby Donna has to have her memory wiped and is therefore written out - we knew it had to happen, but I'm sure there could have been a better way. With the prophesy of "One of them will die", I don't know why they couldn't just follow through on that. They killed off Kylie last Christmas, why not kill Donna off properly? In no real way did one of them die. It was a trick.

And of course the Rose storyline is now resolved and ended and she'll not be back again. I liked what they did there with the other Doctor, but it also felt like a little bit of a cheat. But I'm nit picking here at what was a fab ending to a great series. Well done the BBC.

So here's a quick summary of the whole series:

Partners in crime: Silly but entertaining. 7/10
Fires of Pompeii: Who as Who should be. 8/10
Planet of the Ood: A bit weak, but passes the time. 6/10
The Sontaran strategy: Entertaining. 7/10
The poison sky: Fun with dull bits. 7/10
The Doctor's daughter: Too simple a plot. 6/10
The unicorn and the wasp: Silly but entertaining. 7/10 (initially 5/10 but it grew on me)
Silence in the library: Brilliant and creepy. 9/10
Forest of the dead: Continuing brilliance and creepiness. 9/10
Midnight: Simple story, well told, some great moments. 8/10
Turn left: Genius. 10/10
The stolen earth: Too much happening, but a great roller coaster ride. 8/10
Journey's end: Emotion, heartbreak and some punch-the-air moments. 9/10

Wow, so an episode average of 7.7/10! That's pretty good. By my own scoring rules I should go and buy the DVDs, except that I wouldn't have time to watch them these days... Oh well.

So now its ages and ages until the next Doctor Who (OK, there's a Christmas special, but then ages before the next series). But at least they are making a new series of Torchwood after the summer, so that will hopefully hit our screens early in 2009. And for those of you who don't know, it will be a five-parter, continuous story, showing Monday to Friday one week. And will feature Noel Clarke as Mickey as the new boy on the Torchwood team.

My Super Ex-Girlfriend

2008-07-16T06:41:00.004Z

I finally got around to watching this movie.

Reasons why I wanted to watch it: Its a superhero movie, I love superhero movies. Its a comedy, I like comedy movies. I mean, Mystery Men was excellent, wasn't it?
Reasons why I didn't want to watch it: It stars Uma Thurman and Luke Wilson. I have never understood why Uma Thurman is cast in roles where she's supposed to be attractive or sexy, I just don't see it. And Luke Wilson is always the same character in whatever film he's in.

But I added it to the list of movies on my online DVD rental selection and eventually it turned up on my doorstep.

And I have to say I quite enjoyed it. Yes it had an almost entirely predictable plot (except for the bit with the shark) and you could see the final two 'twists' a mile off, and all the characters were paper thin and reasonably stereotypical, but it did actually have a heart lurking under there and in the end you did care what happened to the characters. And Eddie Izzard always adds a little fun to a film.

Forgettable but transiently entertaining fluff.

Prince Caspian

2008-07-13T16:05:00.009Z

Have I previously mentioned that I'm a bit obsessive about the Narnia stories? I'd read all seven books (at least once each) by the time I was ten. I've probably read them all more times than I've read any other books. I probably still could recite large chunks of the books. So (a) I have to go and see these films at the cinema as soon as they're out, and (b) I'm highly critical of them. But the film adaptation of Lion, Witch & Wardrobe was very good and I managed to forgive its failings and occasional departures from the plot. So what about the sequel?

Well, in many ways, Prince Caspian is possibly the least interesting of the Narnia books. Its not very interesting an allegory and all the good bits of plot happen in flashback, not in the 'present'. It is also possibly the least cinematic of the lot, especially as much of the first part of the book is very talky and happens in flashback. Also there aren't any significant battle scenes, and battles is what the film-going audience want in a fantasy film these days.

You see, in the book, our heroes - the Pevensie kids - meet up with Aslan before they meet Caspian and there is an expectation from then on that Aslan will save the day, but we're just not sure when. The story is all about faith, trust and belief. But that doesn't make for a very dramatic movie - well, certainly not one playing to a secular audience. So the main reasons the movie fails as an adaptation are that they decided to remove the faith story and remove Aslan from the plot until the very, very end.

Obviously, this decision affects the rest of the plot. Given that they're not expecting Aslan to save the day (OK, Lucy is, but the rest aren't), what do they do? And how can we get an extra battle scene in the film?

The film can be split up into three main chunks:

Setting up the story - Caspian escaping from Miraz, meeting the Old Narnians and the children getting back to Narnia and discovering what's going on.
The middle bit from when the children meet up with Caspian until the duel between Miraz and Peter. This is what should be the heart of the story, but is actually the bit where the film strays furthest from the plot and spirit of the book.
The final battle and Aslan's return.

Basically I think its fair to say that I enjoyed parts 1 and 3 and found most of part 2 unnecessary and annoying. So I'll moan about part 2 for a bit and then be positive about the rest of the film after that.

You see - in the book - once Peter and Edmund have met up with Caspian (the girls never meet Caspian until the very end), Peter does his very best to avoid battle and unnecessary bloodshed and hence suggests the duel, primarily to stop the two armies killing each other while the duel is arranged. Not in the film. In the film Peter is all about trying to engage the enemy in battle and attacking the castle. And once that has failed, we need a contrived reason to come back to a duel. Despite what some of the critics have said (that Susan is the weak character in the books), it is actually Peter who is the most 2D character in the books (and in the first film), so to make the plot revolve around him and his decisions is a bad idea. And the actor playing Peter isn't really up to the task of carrying the film through its middle section and so everything falls a bit flat.

The whole film looks like a homage to Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies - compare the opening horse chase to the flight to the ford in Fellowship, compare the final river flood scene at the end to the scene at the ford in Fellowship, compare the battle scenes to ROTK, compare the angry trees to the Ents at Helms Deep, etc. But never is this more apparent than the night-time assault on Minas Tirith, sorry, I mean Miraz's castle. OK, so here the flying gryphons are the good guys, not evil Nazgul, but beyond that everything looks the same. We've seen this before.

But, the whole film does look really good, even if it is homage. It looks like the Narnia in my imagination, fleshed out with bigger towns and more people than the books describe. Despite being about a decade older than he should be, Caspian himself is great and I liked the way the Telmarines and Miraz, in particular, were done. Once again, putting more flesh on the story than there was in the book. Good.

I approve of most of the changes in the early part of the book, missing out all of Caspian's younger years and making the Telmarine situation a bit more political. The changes with the children's story are fine too, and the bits in the ruins of Cair Paravel and all the way up to the river Rush were great. Shame they dropped Edmund's "Where's this bally Rush got to?" line though. 'Bally' is a great non-expletive which should really be reintroduced.

From the River Rush on, though, things start to go wrong. It is at this point that the book deals with the robust faith of Lucy, the failing faith of Susan and the outright disbelief of Trumpkin and the various ways that Aslan deals with them when they all come face to face with him.

By missing out the doubting Susan storyline, the film makers had to change Susan's character for the movie, and I think they did a pretty good job. In the film Susan is a fantastically heroic figure, fighting as well as the boys and falling in love with Caspian as well. Anna Popplewell shines right through the film and I think she has a good future ahead of her.

But by removing Aslan and changing Susan, the film makers unfortunately chop my favourite bit of the entire book. You see, while Peter and Edmund go off to help Caspian face up to Miraz, Susan and Lucy go with Aslan and witness the transformation of Narnia from a stern, repressed, rule-based, grey country into a wild and free country of magic and parties. This is the bit of the story that - no doubt - gives many conservative Christian types cause to worry, as we see Aslan - the allegorical Christ figure - cavorting with pagan gods like Bacchus and enjoying a wine-fueled late night slumber party. Still, at least they left the river god in at the end.

The duel between Peter & Miraz is pretty good but not as good as it should have been. The fight does not suggest that Miraz is an experienced old soldier or that Peter is a great warrior in the prime of his youth. Its just two folk hitting each other with swords. The battle that follows this is OK, but its still just two armies running at each other and fighting. But I suppose that is what the film going public want to see.

The film is too long. With a bit of trimming (of the middle section and the final battle) a much better film would emerge. It's not faithful to the plot or the spirit of the book, but is entertaining enough by itself to stand as a movie in its own right. And it'll make bucket-loads of money, so hopefully we'll get to see a movie adaptation of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader in due course. But then again, that book really doesn't have any potential for battle scenes in it, so they'll really have to change things for that. After that, I'm not really expecting them to make the other four films, although I really think they should do the Magician's Nephew sometime, with Tilda Swinton reprising her role as Jadis. But no battles in that either. Or they might just jump on to The Last Battle (cos they like battles) and be done with it. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

I'm back...

2008-07-12T21:41:00.002Z

Did you miss me?

Various random thoughts and movie & tv reviews to follow shortly...

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of blah, blah, blah...

2008-06-22T10:22:00.005Z

Once there was a time when the combination of George Lucas and Steven Speilberg could do no wrong. And during that period they made 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' - one of my favourite movies ever. This was the first film I ever saw multiple times at the cinema. I think I saw it on three consecutive weekends when I was 11.

Then they followed it up with 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom' a few years later. It was darker and not quite as good, but still great fun.

Then Lucas lost it. He went on to make 'Howard the Duck', the Ewoks movie and ultimately create Jar-Jar Binks; not a great career progression. Speilberg went all serious on us and lost the knack of doing a great blockbuster. The third Indiana Jones movie 'The Last Crusade' was quite good, but not as great as the first two.

And now, after a couple of decades of waiting, comes the fourth, and presumably final, Indiana Jones movie. Was it worth the wait? No. Was it an entertaining film? Yes. Was it another Indiana Jones movie? Not really...

Spoilers below. So watch out if you haven't seen the film...

The basic plot of Indiana Jones movies is that Indy has to get to some ancient religious (and generally magical) artifact before the bad guys (generally Nazis) get to it to use the power for their own evil ends. Along the way we get some whip-cracking, swash-buckling, fist-fighting, gun-toting, truck-chasing action.

But Indy is now 20 years older and we're now in the 1950s. So the bad guys can't be Nazis anymore (actually, I think they could have been, especially since the action mostly takes place in South America - I'm sure there were some Nazis hanging on there in the 50s...) and our hero can't swash his buckle in the same way he used to (actually, as we will see, he can, but the producers obviously thought we wouldn't believe that) so we have a younger sidekick who turns out to be Indy's son. OK, I have no problems with either of those changes.

But let's consider the ancient artifact... Its not a well-known, but lost, Judeo-Christian artifact like the Ark or the Grail in films one or three, its not a fictional Hindu artifact like in film two, its a completely fictional - and clearly alien - artifact from a completely made up religion. You see, from the very outset the rules of this film have changed - we're not in the realm of religious-fantasy, we're firmly in the realm of sci-fi. And that's not Indiana Jones territory.

I'm a big fan of Stargate (the original movie as well as the TV series it spawned), and the premise of this film is very much in Stargate territory. Then there are elements of the Mummy movies thrown into the mix (most notably the swarming ants scene). Then finally there are some elements of Indiana Jones movies thrown in for good measure: hating snakes, truck chases, clifftop fights, a bit of tomb raiding, melting faces, etc., etc. But they are not the starting point, they feel like they've been thrown in there to keep the punters happy. And some of the classic Indy elements are spoiled as they are brought in incorrectly, like the scene with all the natives swarming out of the temple - very much like the opening scene of Raiders, but there Indy only escaped because he had a hapless accomplice with a plane, here we had to resort to sci-fi crystal skulls to scare off the natives. Silly, and not very Indiana Jones.

So this fails as an Indiana Jones movie, and if I'd gone in armed with high expectations I'd have been quite disappointed. Thankfully I'd heard about the silly alien thing (although it pervades the entire movie, its not just the last half hour like some reviewers suggest) and had gone in with as few expectations as I could. And hence enjoyed it quite a bit.

You see, the character of Indy is still intact (even if he's in the wrong film) and Harrison Ford does a great job of making the ridiculous Lucas plot and dialogue seem real, or at least believable. I have no issues with the James Dean-esque son of Indy and thought he brought a new angle to the story. The baddies were a bit two-dimensional with Cate Blanchett behaving like the sort of psycho nutter who is usually second in command to some cat-stroking evil genius. But the cat stroker never appeared, so we were left with a slightly incomplete set of baddies. And Ray Winstone was rubbish.

So what we're left with is a load of quite enjoyable action scenes, a charismatic couple of central characters, a nice re-appearance of Marion from Raiders and some hints of social comment from Speilberg, all tied together with a ridiculous plot and premise.

I liked it. I will certainly watch it again someday. But it was not a worthy successor to Raiders.

Doctor Who: 'Turn Left' (S4E11)

2008-06-22T10:11:00.003Z

I
loved
it
!

That is all I need to say.

The opening credits to next week's episode are going to go on about half the episode: David Tennant; Catherine Tate; Billie Piper; Freema Ageyman; Elizabeth Sladen; John Barrowman... I wonder if Eve Myles will get opening credits billing? And it looks fantastic. I wonder why so many conincidences happen around Donna?

Doctor Who: 'Midnight' (S4E10)

2008-06-16T13:57:00.003Z

I quite enjoyed this episode too, even if it did oscillate between carefully observed characterisation and pure stereotype. It was well cast, suitably quirky, had the right amount of tension & release and was generally quite entertaining. Every time it was about to get annoying it managed to get out of it in time.

But I have two gripes.

The first is a complaint against the Radio Times who listed 'Billie Piper as Rose Tyler' in the credits. So I was all excited in an 'oooh, I wonder how they're going to bring Rose back' kind of a way, only to be disappointed that she only appeared onscreen for less than a second and isn't really back yet. (but next week...)

The second is against The Doctor himself. He quite spectacularly failed to save the day and it was only through the self sacrifice of one of the other characters that he (and everyone else) were saved from peril. Our hero failed. This show is all about how The Doctor is, essentially, a superhero and always cleverly saves the day. But this time he didn't, he failed, he lost. Was this because he was without an assistant in this episode? Will there be repercussions in future episodes? I guess we'll find out. But The Doctor himself only gets 4/10 for this episode. Not clever enough by half. Or possibly too arrogant.

Doctor Who: 'Silence in the library' & 'Forest of the dead' (S4E8&9)

2008-06-09T06:31:00.006Z

Was it just me, or was that the best Doctor Who story of all four series so far?

Erm, probably spoilers in what follows... ;o)

Where should I start? Well, first off, the library setting was great. Looked not unlike something that should have been in Star Wars. And then the 'stay out of the shadows' thing was nicely creepy. Although the 'I have two shadows' thing was a bit silly.

But I can forgive them for that, there were some real gems in there. The whole idea of meeting up with a future assistant was great, although if the series runs for long enough it could give some real continuity problems - it is clear that Prof River Song knew this regeneration form of the Doctor, but significantly aged, so to keep the continuity line right we need to have David Tennant as Doctor for several years yet and then have a slightly younger River Song as an assistant. Possibly more than just an assistant if the hints were accurate... That could be tricky.

The whole library and vashta nerada (or however we're spelling that) thing would have been creepy enough, but the faces on the terminals and the data ghosts made the thing a whole heap more creepy. And then to put the whole thing inside the head of a small girl. Genius.

But what I didn't totally understand was what exactly it was that River Song did at the end that the Doctor was going to do? I had thought that the Doctor was going to upload all the 'saved' people into himself somehow, but the people all rematerialised in the library, so what did River actually sacrifice herself for?

But anyway, I thought it was great and it was the first two parter in a long time that didn't have an 'oh, get on with it' section in the middle somewhere. Fab.

Not sci-fi books. Honest.

2008-06-03T22:09:00.004Z

When is a sci-fi book not a sci-fi book?

Last year (you may remember) I read and reviewed 'The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters' by G.W. Dahlquist. Well, the sequel - 'The Dark Volume' - is out now (hardback) and I popped into my local bookshop to see how much they were selling it for. But it wasn't in the 'Science Fiction and Fantasy' section of the shop. I found it in the 'General Fiction' section.

But the book is clearly SF. OK, it might be a pseudo-Victorian setting, but it is quite definitely 'steam-punk' SF. They have impossible technology. Characters in the book are transformed into super-human (or certainly non-human) beings. So why is this book not shelved with the rest of the SF?

Another SF book I read recently, 'The end of Mr Y' by Scarlett Thomas (hey, I don't seem to have blogged about that one; it was quite good) is similarly shelved in General Fiction, not in SF. Yet that one features time travel and rewriting history.

So when is a SF book not a SF book?

The only conclusion I can come to is that it is not considered SF when mainstream reviewers actually like it. Then they class it as literature.

I had thought perhaps it was when an author who had not previously written SF wrote a SF novel, but then I realised that G.W. Dahlquist hadn't written anything before 'Glass books'. He's never written non-SF.

Its the same on TV and in movies. You get actors being interviewed trying to play down the 'science fiction' aspect of the show or movie that they're in. You know, they might be in Heroes - which is all about superheroes - but they still make out that its not a SF/Fantasy show and claim its really all about character and drama. But so is almost all SF!

Aaaaargh! It makes me want to scream.

Nancy (epilogue)

2008-06-03T13:07:00.002Z

What did I tell you? The public, in their infinite wisdom, chose the worst of the three in the final of 'I'd do anything' on Saturday night. Sigh.

Personally, I think that Jodie won in the same way as Michelle McManus did on Pop Idol a few years ago (2003, actually) - she got the 'fat vote'.

Then again, none of my favourites have ever won any of these Saturday evening talent shows. The British public has no taste.

Spoiler sport...

2008-06-03T13:01:00.003Z

Why did nobody tell me that Saturday evening's Doctor Who was the first part of a two parter? I like to know these things in advance. Now I have another four and a bit days to wait for the conclusion. I wasn't mentally prepared for this. And add to that that this is the best episode of the series so far, which only serves to increase the annoyance. Aaaaargh.

Full review to follow once I've seen the conclusion.

Nancy!

2008-05-26T07:28:00.004Z

Regular readers of this blog who are interested in such things (hello Marcus!) will have observed that I watch some of the Saturday evening talent shows in the UK, but rarely comment on them until they are nearly at an end. Basically, I don't really care about the things until it gets down to the final few.

And so "I'd do anything" nears the end and, as usual, I have a last minute switch of loyalties and a last minute disappointment.

You see, I've been thinking that Jessie was clearly the best for most of the series, but she seems to have lost it a bit in the last couple of weeks and Samantha has just got better and better as time has gone on. And so the last minute switch of loyalties - I approached Saturday evening's show wanting Samantha to win, and to be joined by Jessie and Rachel in the final. I've been thinking that Jodie should be voted off for several weeks now, but the public seems to like her.

So what I was expecting last night was for Samantha and Jodie to be voted into the final and for Jessie and Rachel to face each other in the singoff (and I would then have expected Andrew Lloyd Webber to have saved Jessie). That's what I was expecting. On the basis of the actual performances on Saturday I thought the singoff should have been between Jodie and Jessie as Rachel and Samantha were both excellent on Saturday.

But of course my opinions and expectations were both wrong and (on the basis of this weekend's shows) the best two performers had to do the singoff. And of course ALW had to save Samantha.

And it was at that point I found myself absolutely gutted that Rachel was out of the show. Her final performance of 'As long as he needs me' was completely over-acted, over-emoted, over-cockneyed and over-everything-elsed, but was absolutely brilliant and the best send off of anyone in the series so far. She should have been in the final. Furthermore, in all the interview bits this weekend, she came across as the nicest of the four (ok, they're all hugely ego-tastic at this stage, but she did have a degree of humility that Jodie and Samatha particularly are lacking).

So what will happen next week? Well, I'm back to wanting Jessie to win, but won't mind if Samantha does. However, I fear that Jodie will win the public vote and go on to star in the west end show (and then burn out after 6 months and vanish from the public eye). Of course, the others will all get stage work, I have no doubts that Samantha will be a leading lady in something big before she's 20 - lets face it, she's already done the audition for Wicked if Kerry Ellis ever decides to stop doing it... but only time will tell. And I'll probably be wrong, as usual.

Doctor Who: 'The Unicorn and the Wasp' (S4E7)

2008-05-23T08:29:00.002Z

Was alright, I suppose. Next...

Updated following Marcus's comment below:

Yes, sorry, I felt the need to comment on that one but didn't have the time. I quite liked it but also felt it was overly silly (a giant wasp?) and overly talky for its own good. The whole thing about why the wasp did everything in the style of an Agatha Christie story was one plot contrivance too far. But I think the overall idea of trying to do a Doctor Who murder mystery was great, I'm just not convinced the actual end result was as good as it should have been.

Doctor Who: 'The Doctor's Daughter' (S4E6)

2008-05-23T06:39:00.002Z

I liked this one, but it was a bit of a let down too.

The idea of creating a daughter for the Doctor was good, but given that the whole story had to be wrapped up in 45 minutes, the whole thing was kind of lacking. This would have been done better in the old days where the story could have been played out over a month or six weeks.

So the underlying point - the Doctor gets a daughter - had to be wrapped in the simplest, primary coloured, paper thin plot they could come up with. Why were the Hath and the humans there? Never properly explained. Why did they have guns and replicating equipment and not much else? Never properly explained. Etc. Etc.

Still, some good points were made about nature vs nurture and making your own choices and all that. But it was all too lightly done and too quick. It is possible to convey a story with some meat on it in 45 minutes.

Nice touch that Jenny, the Doctor's daughter, was played by the daughter of a previous incarnation of the Doctor, Peter Davison. And she's a babe, so she's welcome back on my TV anytime. I get the feeling this isn't the last we'll see of her.

Brokeback Mountain

2008-05-22T12:33:00.002Z

I watched 'Brokeback Mountain' on telly the other night. Its been on my 'to watch: eventually' list ever since it came out a few years ago. It wasn't worth the wait.

It was one of those films with great performances and stunning scenery and was beautifully shot and all that, but I really didn't care what happened next at any point. An hour into the film and I could quite easily have gone to bed and would not have bothered to ask anyone how the film ended.

Two things put me off the film. The first thing is perhaps the most important as it was the crucial scene in the first part of the film - the first time Ennis and Jack, erm, get physical. Maybe its because I'm not a closet homosexual, but that scene just didn't ring true to me. The sexual tension built up a bit and then - all of a sudden - it was belts-off, trousers-down, rodgering... nothing tentative, no foreplay, not even any snogging first, just straight to it. Is that the way it works? Maybe it it, maybe I've led a sheltered life, but it just didn't ring true to me. And given that the rest of the film relies on that scene ringing true to the audience, the film lost me there.

The other thing that annoyed me about the film was the timeline. It jumped several years in time with no warning and little explanation. OK, so we could observe time passing as hairstyles changed and kids grew older, but as neither of the lead characters aged much it didn't ring true either. By the end of the film, when nearly 20 years have passed since the first scenes, Jack still looks like a bloke in his mid 20s and - being generous here - Ennis is clearly not much above 40. Some better use of makeup would have been appropriate. Perhaps Jack could have had a bit of middle aged spread?

The story is basically: two closet gay guys meet, fall in love and live unhappily ever after. The end.

Yes it may have been art, yes it may have told me something about human behaviour and emotions, but no it was not gripping and was not entertaining. So it fails to meet my basic expectations of a movie. Shame.

Will have to go and see Indiana Jones to compensate... ;o)

'Making Money' by Terry Pratchett

2008-05-04T09:30:00.009Z

Once there was a time, a few years ago, when I eagerly awaited the publication of a Terry Pratchett book. Luckily for me I have a birthday in November and Pratchett books tend to be published in early November, in time for Christmas shopping. I think I've had a present of a hardback Pratchett book for every birthday so far this century. I got 'Making Money' in November last year, along with a few other books, so it didn't get read straight away.

It wasn't really worth the wait. It is a disappointing read. Nothing of any interest actually happens in the book. The characters appear to be quite interesting at first glance, but aren't really fleshed out as the book goes on. The character of 'Adora Belle', for example, is just there. She doesn't do much, she doesn't grow as a character and we learn nothing about her through the book. I didn't really remember much about her from 'Going Postal', but that might be because there isn't much to remember. Maybe she is just a paper thin, 2D character. The main character 'Moist' isn't much better. He's a man who needs a challenge too keep him on the (reasonably) straight and narrow, but beyond that he doesn't have much of a fleshed-out character after two books.

Most of Pratchett's early books were funny and entertaining. In some of them the plot was secondary to the laughs. Later Pratchett books have tended to be humourous rather than funny, but the plots have often been interesting, clever and gripping. This book was humourous in bits but never gripping and rarely interesting. Which is a big shame.

I've read all the Discworld books. I realise that is nothing remarkable to several of the readers of this blog and probably marks me out as a geek to the rest of you. Here, in very potted form are my opinions on the series so far:

The Colour of Magic
The first Discworld novel. Quite funny, made me want to read more but I wasn't expecting TP to become as huge a success as he did. If you haven't read any TP this is a good place to start, but it gets better after this.
The Light Fantastic
More coherent and less episodic than the first book. Also much, much better. A very funny book with a great story. Rincewind is a fantastic comedy character.
Equal Rites
Good ideas in here, but not as well done as The Light Fantastic. Introduces the character of Granny Weatherwax, who'll get to be in much better books later on.
Mort
The first brilliant TP book. This is where he gets into his stride. Fantastic ideas and some really funny stuff. You could read this as your first Discworld book.
Sourcery
Rincewind is back, yippee. Entertaining.
Wyrd Sisters
Another brilliant TP book. This is the first proper book about the Witches and is one of the best Discworld books. This book is perhaps more clever than any of the books so far.
Pyramids
I really, really liked this one when it came out. Philosophy and fantasy rolled into one. Excellent. Stands up well to repeat readings too.
Guards! Guards!
Brilliant again. This one is probably (in my opinion) the best Discworld book of the lot. This is also probably the last book which you could read as your first exposure to Discworld, all the subsequent ones kind of rely on those that have gone before, to a greater or lesser extent. This one is jam-packed full of fully constructed characters and has a great and interesting story for them to be in.
Eric
Ricncewind returns in a fairly slight story. Not great, but quite adequate.
Moving pictures
I didn't like this on first reading. It improved the second time, but is still not great.
Reaper man
Again, I didn't like this on first reading, but when I revisitied it a few years later I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Witches abroad
The Witches are back in another highly entertaining story. I think TP had a lot of fun writing this.
Small gods
This one ranks second to 'Guards! Guards!' in my opinion. Brilliant. I love all the philosophical ideas in this one.
Lords and ladies
This picks up straight after 'Witches Abroad' but isn't half as good a story.
Men at arms
The sequel to 'Guards! Guards!' is very good, and also one of the best Discworld stories.
Soul music
This is kind of like 'Moving Pictures', but a bit better. Still not one of the greats though.
Interesting times
Another Rincewind story. Funny and, erm, interesting. I like this one a lot.
Maskerade
The Witches return in a fine story, which is a bit on the long side.
Feet of clay
Another in the 'City Watch' thread, a great, gripping read.
Hogfather
I loved this book on first reading, but subsequent reads haven't been as good. Quite philosophical again. This has been made into a TV mini-series which included the plot and some of the humour, but most of the interesting stuff got chopped out, which is a big shame.
Jingo
Serious. This one marks the switch from frivolous to serious. Its about war. Its not about Iraq, honest. Not enough gags. I didn't like it much and have never tried a second read.
Last continent
Rincewind again. OK, but not a great one. Some of the idas in here don't seem to fit with the rest of the story.
Carpe jugulum
Quite a dark one this. All about vampires. I don't really like vampire stories much.
The fifth elephant
Having done vampires, this one is about werewolves. The word 'gritty' might start to apply here. Less jokes than of old, more politics. A bit grim in bits. And the whole thing of the 'clacks' system becoming like the internet is dull.
The truth
The first really good book for a few years. Introduces new central characters while characters we know well appear in cameo roles. Pratchett does this in subsequent books a lot, but (in my opinion) this is the only book where it really works well. Interesting plot and some good comedy moments.
The last hero
Short story with pictures. Featuring Rincewind again. Nice but forgettable story.
The thief of time
I never really 'got' this one. There are some interesting ideas tied up in a strange plot and I'm not really sure what's going on.
Night watch
Serious again. Good story but with not a lot of laughs.
Monstrous regiment
Back to war again. Serious. I didn't like this one at all.
Going postal
A new character is introduced and lots of old ones cameo. Not a great or interesting story and not very funny. Disappointing.
Thud!
Serious and political again but with some good bits. Best of the recent books, but that's not saying much.
Making Money
Reviewed above.

Doctor Who: 'The Sontaran Strategy' & 'The Poison Sky' (S4E4&5)

2008-05-04T07:42:00.004Z

I do like Doctor Who two parters. Indeed, I do like Doctor Who six parters, but we haven't had any of those for a long time.

I don't really remember the Sontarans from the old days. Or rather, I remember what they looked like, but not anything about their characters. Their modern day appearance is slightly more Vogon than they were in the 70s.

So, there were a few plot holes, but on the whole this was a reasonably entertaining story. Like many of the NuHu two parters, there was a bit in the second episode where I felt like shouting 'Oh, get on with it!' at the screen, but it was still good fun.

Martha Jones was a bit underused, really. [Spoiler alert] It seems that the Sontarans went to huge bother to create a clone of Martha, just so she could press the 'no' button every few minutes. Not a great part really. But nice to see her back anyway.

Going by the preview, next week could be interesting, but I just wish they'd get on with it and do the story where Rose finally catches up with the Doctor. Preferably when Martha is still there...

Waiting for the new albums...

2008-04-22T14:39:00.003Z

Some time ago, actually in January 2007, I wrote this blog posting. In it I wondered if 2007 was going to be a great year for albums...

I listed my favourite 5 bands (according to last.fm) and noted that most of them were working on new material. So what's the update? Well, for one thing, the 'top five' order has changed since last year (but not the actual five), and here's the updates:

Fish
Fish released a rather good solo album last year. I reviewed it on the blog. This year seems to be mostly tied up with promo stuff for that album and another album is not on the cards for 2008.

Queen
The long awaited new 'Queen+Paul Rodgers' album is due out in September. The first track I've heard from it is adequate, but not great. However it is good enough for me to have high hopes. And I've bought tickets for the SECC show in October.

Marillion
The 2007 album ('Somewhere else') from Marillion was disappointing. I saw them live in concert and was disappointed. It sounded like an album that was just thrown out there because an album was due. Shame. But they're working on a new double album for release later this year, which will hopefully be good. But I'm not going to see the tour this time.

Spacehog
Still waiting for something from Arckid...

Heart
And I've just heard that Heart are recording a new studio album in 2008. This now jumps ahead of Queen+Paul Rodgers as my most anticipated album of the year!

Doctor Who: 'Planet of the Ood' (S4E3)

2008-04-19T22:22:00.004Z

Poor Ood. They have a hard time of it.

So we're back to plots written in crayon again. Lots of guns, lots of running about, some senseless death, a few hiccups in the plot and a political message written about as large as it is possible to write it. In crayon. Yes, we get the point.

Still, it had some good moments, and I am now actively liking the character of Donna.

Oh, but the reveal of what it is the Ood naturally hold in their hands instead of the translator ball was just plain silly.

156

2008-04-19T22:20:00.001Z

Free-IQTest.net - Online IQ Test

Well, what can I say? Facebook thinks I'm only 138, and I was happy with that.

;o)

Doctor Who: The Fires of Pompeii (S4E2)

2008-04-12T23:13:00.002Z

Loved it. I thought the seers declaring things they couldn't have known about the Doctor & Donna was great. I thought the little insights into the characters of both the Doctor and Donna were good too. I think I like what they're doing with the character of Donna and the relationship between the two. The FX were nice, the plot and supporting characters interesting and the twist was fab.

More like this please.

C-lebrity

2008-04-07T12:27:00.003Z

This is the first new song from the, as yet untitled, Queen+Paul Rodgers album due in September. Of course, we've already heard 'Say its not true' but its been around for a few years.

So first impressions? Its clearly a Roger Taylor song with an overlay of Brian May guitar. Not great, but not awful. Hopefully Roger didn't write everything on the album as I think Brian and Paul are generally better songwriters than Roger. But its a glimmer of hope - this is better than anything on Roger's last solo effort and is up there with the best from his other solo back catalogue.

Roll on September...

Doctor Who: 'Partners in Crime' (S4E1)

2008-04-06T07:57:00.002Z

Doctor Who returns. Yay!

Donna returns. Hmmm?

Cute alien blobs. Nice.

Technobabble & sonic screwdrivers that can do everything. Erm.

Well, I suppose it was OK. Donna could get annoying or she could be OK. I'll get back to you on that one. Reasonably entertaining. Next.

And Rose? Well, that's where it could get interesting...

Torchwood: S2E10 - S2E13

2008-04-06T06:56:00.006Z

Oooh, a lack of blogging of late means that I have four episodes of Torchwood to review in one go... here goes. Probably spoilers in here, so tread carefully.

Episode 10: From out of the rain

Hmmm. A genuinely creepy episode. Or rather, the characters and concepts were really creepy, but the actual plot was a bit dull. I wish the character of 'Pearl' had been fleshed out a bit more, what actually did she do at the circus? What exactly was her affinity with water? And Jack was in there somewhere, but we never really found out why. Argh, so many questions, so few answers. A strange mix of interesting and disappointing.

Episode 11: Adrift

It seems that Ruth Jones is in every BBC Wales/BBC Three production at the moment. She's in Gavin & Stacey, was in Little Britain, Nighty Night, Saxondale and now here she is in Torchwood. Playing a character she isn't yet old enough to play (actually, I just checked, she's 42, so I guess she is actually old enough to play the parent of a 17 year old boy, must be me getting old...). She did a good job too.

Quite a moving episode, lots of what passes for emotion in sci-fi and a bit of a moral grey area dilemma, which is always good. Jean Luc Picard would probably have violated the prime directive here too. Everything was good up to the point when we saw part of Jonah's 20 hours a day torment, which was when it went silly. Nevermind, good effort.

Episode 12: Fragments

Four explosions (how did Capt John know that they'd split up and Gwen wouldn't be there?) result in four members of the team having life-flashing-before-their-eyes moments. Except only those bits of their life when they joined Torchwood. So finally we get the story of how Jack joined Torchwood. Good. And I suppose learning how the others joined was vaguely interesting too. But the Ianto story was just silly and is rewriting history, because he didn't have an interesting character in Series 1, so how come he had an interesting character before Series 1?

Episode 13: Exit wounds

And so it ends. In most end of season sci-fi episodes you need explosions, plot twists, the return of characters from earlier in the series and the unexpected writing out of a recurring character. Usually the entire world is in danger, or possibly just Cardiff if your budget doesn't stretch to the world. So nothing greatly unexpected here. I've been waiting for them to finally kill off Owen since he became undead about 5 episodes ago, so they finally did it. Good. It would have just got too annoying if they hadn't.

And now the yo-yo character of Captain John. He's good, he's bad, he kills Jack, he loves Jack, oh I don't care anymore. Please don't bring him back for Series 3, if there is a Series 3.

Now let me get this straight, Jack was buried about 6 or 10 feet down in the soil for 2000 years. During that time presumably he died quite a lot of times. But how come he couldn't manage to dig himself up even just an inch each time? Surely in 2000 years he'd have managed to get out? Didn't quite ring true... for a given sci-fi value of true, that is.

And finally the bad guy. 'Gray' is such a bad name for a character. How did they come up with that one? And I just didn't buy it. Sorry, but the explosions and mayhem were good, Gwen being a hero was good, the deaths of major characters were good, the Toshiko from beyond the grave bit was good, but the basic underlying plot was pretty rubbish. I suppose on balance that comes out as better than average, but it still disappointed.

Doctor Who next though...

'I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me from Being the Master' by Electric Six

2008-03-10T12:06:00.006Z

I've commented before that - despite being a generally contented, non angry and not prone to mood swings type of guy - I have a peculiar liking of angry music and art which is 'dark'. This probably explains why I really quite liked Electric Six's first album 'Fire' (2003). Most folk will only remember the hits 'Danger! High Voltage!' and 'Gay bar' both of which were (lyrically) quite rude but (musically) an intriguing mix of rock and disco which I quite liked. Since then Electric Six have released 'Senor Smoke' (2005) , which was disappointing, 'Switzerland' (2006), which I didn't like that much, and now they have a new album (OK, so it came out in November, but I've only just heard it) called 'I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me from Being the Master'. Nice title.But is it any good? Well, first listen shows promise, some good tunes, silly humour and a few angry expletives... Watch this space for my more detailed thoughts later...

...much later.

Well, after quite a few listens, I think its safe to say that this album falls quite well into the 'guilty pleasure' category. I like it a lot but it contains such a mixed bag of negative emotions that I probably shouldn't be filling my mind with stuff like that. Probably need to listen to Delirious?'s entire back catalogue to balance up the karma. Or something.

There are a few great stand out tracks in the first half of the album, jam packed full of humour and punch-the-air angry rock moments. The album opener, "Its Showtime" sets the tone for the album, its an intro to the themes of dancing, entertainment, sexiness and so on that are to come; "...and put a little mustard on it!" is a great metaphor for taking the entertainment to the next level. Cool.

The trio of "Dance pattern", "Rip it" and "Feed my f$%#ing habit" are the core of the album, the first being quite reminiscent of the first Electric Six album and the others being so full of anger its almost astonishing. This is not an album to listen to in the company of anyone who can get offended at anything.

The rest of the album is full of good songs, mostly in the same kind of flow as the first 5, but none stand out as being significantly better or worse than the rest. But its all entertaining stuff, and certainly as good as, if not better than, the first album.

Fotobook gripe

2008-03-07T13:03:00.003Z

I've been compiling a photo album of all the best of my digi-photos from 2007. I decided to use the Fotobook software to create the book (can be done offline, unlike Photobox who I have used before), which you then upload to their website and they print the book and post it to you.

The book hasn't arrived yet. I'll comment on the photo quality when it does.

But I am annoyed by their software. It ate all the free space on my hard disk. Before I started working on the book, there was 19Gb of free space on my 'C' drive. I saved the file to the desktop. As I added photos (about 280 of them) the thing grew to a whopping 1.8Gb. But still nowhere near enough to clog up the hard drive.

Last weekend, while saving a near-final version of the book, the computer gave me a 'stream writing error' warning. I had a look and discovered that the hard drive was full! A bit of snooping lead me to the discovery of over ten '.tmp' files, each well over 1Gb in size, buried away in a temp directory. The Fotobook software doesn't delete its temp files! And everytime you use it it creates a new file rather than over-writing a previous one.

That is really sloppy.

Torchwood: S2E8 'A day in the death' & S2E9 'Something borrowed'

2008-03-07T12:17:00.004Z

I watched both the BBC2 and BBC3 episodes, back to back, on Wednesday. So here are my thoughts on both. There's probably spoilers in here, so go carefully.

Episode 8: A day in the death

Life is worth living, even if you're dead. That seemed to be the message of this episode. I'm not sure how long they can sustain this Owen is dead plot. If he doesn't regenerate, can't eat and can't have sex, I'm not sure he'll stay a useful character for very long. But this episode was quite good. I enjoyed it at the time, although now I'm finding it hard to remember what actually happened. It was more character centred than plot centred, but was entertaining enough.

Episode 9: Something Borrowed

I liked this one too. This was one of those 'only in Torchwood' episodes. Humour, emotion, action and Nerys Hughes as a battle axe mother in law and as a violent shape-shifting alien...

The amnesia drug is too handy a plot device though.

Time for a new gadget?

2008-03-06T13:17:00.004Z

I'm wondering if its time to upgrade my gadget PDA-phone...

I've had my i-Mate JAMin for about two years now and its beginning to show signs of age. But if I replace it, what should I replace it with?

Good features of the JAMin I'd like to keep:

Windows Mobile. OK, its not perfect, but I'm used to it now and would rather not have to change to Symbian or something else.
Touch screen control (i.e. Windows Mobile pro)
Wi-fi
Bluetooth
General overall size. It fits in my pocket, anything bigger wouldn't.
Memory card slot
Ability to play videos. Handy on short plane flights (i.e. those without in-flight movies)
Camera. Actually a low light, higher res camera would be great. Like the LG Viewty.

But I'd also like:

Some form of keypad. It is close to impossible to send texts using stylus entry on a bus or in a car (as a passenger!). Either a full QWERTY keyboard or just a simple numeric keypad with predictive text is highly desirable on the new gadget.
A bigger screen. Although this may not be possible in the same size of unit, I'd like a bigger screen, maybe just longer for widescreen movies. Like the Samsung F700? (but it doesn't have wi-fi or Windows, so its out - nice screen though), or possibly
Higher screen resolution. If the screen was the same size but had higher resolution, that would be good. Full VGA would be excellent, especially for PowerPoint previews.
VGA out. This is the ultimate. The ability to run a PowerPoint presentation from the gadget on an external projector or monitor. More and more gadgets have this. Cool.
GPS. This started appearing on phones not long after I got the Jamin. Would be nice as a bonus.
SDHC. That is, the ability to have memory cards with a capacity of more than 2Gb.
HSDPA. That is, 'mobile broadband' on the 3G networks.

Anyone any ideas as to what I should choose?

Eten Glofiish M700 and the HTC Tytn II seem to fit most of these requirements and the forthcoming i-Mate 9502 and Toshiba G920 look good too. Any advice?

I've compared the sizes of the new gadgets compared to the old one. All slightly larger, but hardly significantly so. Indeed the only one much bigger is the Toshiba. But because of the clamshell design of the Toshiba, it is the only one of the four considered here that wouldn't need some form of protective case, so the sizes probably ballance out totally.

Walk the line (2005)

2008-03-03T07:14:00.004Z

I saw 'Walk the line' the other night. Quite good. Would have been much better if I had never seen 'Ray' though. It seems the ingredients for a successful solo music career in the 60s were:

Death of a sibling as a child.
Strongly religious parents
Married & kids before success
Living on the poverty line
Meeting the right producer
Infidelity on the road
Marriage break up
Drugs and alcohol addiction

So much of the film felt like a re-run of 'Ray', which is a shame as the performances - both acting and singing - were good and Johnny Cash came over as a more likable character than Ray Charles did.

However, I felt that the wee scar on Joaquin Phoenix's upper lip and Reece Witherspoon's gargantuan chin both kept reminding me that these were actors playing parts and I never totally came to see the people on the screen as the characters themselves. Shame.

Torchwood: S2E7 'Dead man walking'

2008-02-26T13:03:00.004Z

Given the title of the episode and the content of this trailer, its kind of clear what is going to happen in this episode, but if you haven't seen it and you don't want to know, do not read below the video clip as there will be spoilers...

OK. So Owen died last week. But when has death ever stopped a character returning in sci-fi? They bring Owen back, but he's not alive as such (cue jokes about lack of bodily functions and the normal things that happen to a body after death) and something is taking over his body.

Anyone else reminded of the two parter ('The Impossible Planet' and 'The Satan Pit') from series two of the new Doctor Who? Must be just me then.

And so, when 'Death' is revealed we get into very dodgy CGI territory. And what happened when it all went black? Owen went to 100% 'something else', the black CGI came out of him, everything went black and then it seems we're missing at least one scene. How is Owen still standing? If he was 100% something else and it came out of him, surely that means he's now 0% anything, and certainly wouldn't be expected to be up and walking about. Why does Jack appear to wake up in the car at the hospital? How did they get there? Either this is bad plotting or really bad editing. What happened?

And the final battle between Owen and 'Death' was just mince, wasn't it?

And going by the preview, Owen is still neither alive nor dead next week. Do I care?

Killing off main characters is often good for a series. Instantly bringing them back undoes all the good. Unless of course, they're going to do the double whammy and kill off someone else, and then not bring them back. We'll see.

But I think this is the low point of this series so far. Next.

Oh, but who was the tarot girl? Do we get a story involving her in the future? I'm a little bit intrigued there.

Misplaced Childhood?

2008-02-25T11:40:00.004Z

I went to Parson's Green Primary School in Edinburgh when I was wee (the image on the right is a pupil's recreation of the school logo - its supposed to be a beacon burning for all to see, but I always thought it looked like a litter bin on fire, the bins they had in the playground in the 70s were metal cage-like things).

Anyway. I remember quite enjoying the first two years of my school experience. I had a nice teacher, Miss Mackay (who ended up married to my eldest brother, but that's another story!), I made some friends and generally got on OK.

Then came primary 3 and 4. For two years I had Miss Grosset for a teacher and hated every minute of it. I was a bit of a dreamer but could do sums and writing and the stuff that I was supposed to do, but I did it slowly. Miss G's solution to this problem was to shout at me. Unfortunately, my response to being shouted at was not to speed up and do the work, but to retreat further into daydreams and slow down further. Which made her shout louder. And so on.

I remember one occasion when I'd been going slow on some sums and the class was going swimming in the second half of the morning. I was shouted at and threatened that if I did not finish the sum sheet in question that I would be left while the rest of the class went swimming. I didn't finish the sums. The rest of the class went swimming. I was left - on my own, with no supervision - in the classroom to finish the sums in time for lunch. The teacher in the next door classroom occasionally peeked in, but I was basically left by myself for about 75 minutes. I don't think I ever finished the sum sheet.

Of course, such actions on the part of a teacher would be severely dealt with these days. But that is not really the point I want to make. The thing is, for years I have remembered that day as an example of how bad P3 & P4 were for me. But last week I was talking about it with my wife and I came to realise that this is my only memory of those two years! I can recall several different things that happened in P1 & P2, quite a lot from P5, loads from P6 and P7 but only one from P3 or P4 (and I don't even remember which). I must have blotted out everything else.

Generally, I have a very good memory for events, places, etc. (not people's names, sadly) and I am quite shocked to discover that two years of my life (except one morning) are missing. Can I get it back? Would I want to? I'm not sure.

By the way, P5 (Mrs Quinn), P6 (Miss Stillie & Mrs Hunter) and P7 (Miss Howie) were all reasonably pleasant experiences for me, but I would never have said I enjoyed school until I reached the high school and discovered, much to the surprise of many, that I was really quite good at maths & science.

Battle of the Banks?

2008-02-21T14:30:00.003Z

We're looking to change banks.

For varous reasons, for the first time ever, we are probably in a position to save some money, so I want to have:

A current account for everyday transactions, which preferably has a decent interest rate.
One or more savings accouts, preferably with instant or quick access, with reasonable interest rates.
Both with good online and telephone banking services.

In about a year, our current mortgage deal ends and I'd quite like to then transfer the mortgage to the same lender so we can 'offset' against the savings/current account.

From the legwork I've done already it looks like First Direct or Intelligent Finance are the two main contenders (Smile and Egg are also both in there too, but with Egg I'd have to have the current account with someone else, and I'd rather not - for simplicity, and there was something that put me off going with Smile, but I forget what it was now...).

So, can anyone advise, which is better First Direct or IF?

(also looking to switch credit cards, but I think I know which to go for there).

Torchwood: S2E6 'Reset'

2008-02-21T10:29:00.004Z

Martha Jones guest stars, Jim Robinson from Neighbours guest stars, lots of people die and something sinister is going on in the Cardiff area.

Beware, there will be spoilers below.

First things first, its nice to see Martha in Torchwood, but her realtionship with Jack with the Doctor not there was odd. I think they managed to convey that someting was missing between the two of them, and there was a slight awkwardness. Or that could have been a slightly clumsy script?

Given that Gwen, Ianto, Tosh and Owen still have very little clue as to who Jack is, where he's from and what he's done in his own personal past (even though much of that was in the future), I'm surprised that there wasn't more effort on the part of the Torchwood team to find out about Jack through Martha. Maybe that'll come in weeks to come. The moment of bonding between Gwen and Martha was good.

Nice to see the culmination of the Tosh and Owen thing that has been building for a few weeks, even though it ends in tragedy. But of course, we now see that they were setting that up.

So the plot? Well it was OK. Nothing remarkable, not terrible, not great. But, of course, it was just the backdrop for the two events that they wanted to write in this week. Enter Dr Jones, exit Dr Harper.

Clearly Russell T. and the production team have been watching some of the big action/sci-fi shows like 24, Lost and Heroes. They've learned that you can kill off major characters and keep going. indeed, that killing off major characters can sometimes enhance a show. Perhaps that's why the show has been made to feel much more of an 'ensemble' piece over the past 5 episodes.

In fact, for most of the episode I was expecting it was going to be Martha who was going to die. Not on the basis of what was happening in the episode, but on the basis of the press coverage of Martha's appearance in Torchwood. She's been everywhere recently mentioning that she's in Torchwood for a bit but that her involvement with Doctor Who isn't over yet, etc. For some reason it reminded me very much of when Alex Fearns character 'Trevor' was written out of Eastenders. For a week or two beforehand he was making TV and magazine appearances and somehowm managed to mention in every one of them that his contract extended for several months more, and then they killed him off suddenly when no-one was expecting it. I thought they were going to do that with Martha. And it was only when Owen saved Martha that I realised that wasn't going to happen and that Owen was the one who was going to die. Somehow a death was inevitable.

And where now? Well, I've recorded episode 7 from BBC3 last night, so may watch it tonight. But does this mean that Martha will be standing in for Owen for a few episodes, or does she just do her guest appearance and leave? Will Torchwood continue as a four-piece or will they have to recruit someone new? That could be interesting... We'll just have to watch and see.

Atonement (the movie, not the book)

2008-02-17T20:54:00.003Z

Just saw the Oscar nominated movie Atonement. Nominated for 7 Oscars including 'best motion picture' and 'best supporting actress'.

If that's the best movie of the year, I'm glad I didn't make it out to the cinema much in 2007.

There will be spoilers here. Sorry.

I should state here that I haven't read the book. So I'm judging the film on its own merits. And the main merits are a great supporting cast and James McAvoy. Both actresses who played Briony aged 13 and aged 18 were great. But Keira was wooden.

But the main issues I have with the film are:

There is no way that Robbie would be so stupid as to send the wrong letter. No way. I can understand how it could have been written, but nobody - having written that letter - would calmly fold it and place it at the side of the desk. Or, if the letter had been left undestroyed, there is no way that he would have sent it without checking. No way. Totally unbelievable.
The whole bit in France, before Robbie gets to the beach, is utterly pointless and does not advance the story. I was so bored by it.
And the film jumps about in time quite unnecessarily. One scene happens, the next was '3 weeks earlier', then suddenly 4 years have passed, then we jump again. Basically this suggests to me that if the story was told linearly that it wouldn't be very interesting.
And everyone dies. I know the tragedy is a classic literary form, but I've never really understood it. Where is the entertainment in there? Basically, crap things happen to a bunch of people because somebody made a mistake and then they die. The end.

So you'll have noticed that I didn't like it much. When I watch a film I want to relate to characters in it, I want to like them, I want to care what happens to them. The only character in there I cared about was Robbie, and it was clear from the outset that only crap things were going to happen to him. To be honest, I could have given up watching at any point, but I thought I may as well watch until the crucial mistake in the middle to see how it would happen. And then I was past half way and thought I may as well watch to the end. Wish I hadn't.

Go on, tell me I'm wrong...

Torchwood: S2E4 'Meat' & S2E5 'Adam'

2008-02-16T17:45:00.004Z

I've been away for a while, so this is me playing catch up...

Episode 4: Meat

Nice idea for the story. I liked that. Um, but how does the creature actually grow? What does it eat in order to gain weight? Just a little problem for the plot there. But it was reasonably entertaining, even if it did feel like it was about 20 minutes longer than it needed to be.

Episode 5: Adam

Also a nice idea, which started off well but unraveled a bit towards the end. The problem is, however, if Adam changed their (long term) memories, how could taking a 2 day amnesia pill restore things to the way they were before?

So two episodes with interesting ideas, but both would have benefited from a bit more thinking the problem through before finalising the plot.

And Martha Jones is in it next week (unless you've already watched it on BBC3, which I haven't)

The Portable Door by Tom Holt

2008-02-06T07:13:00.000Z

During the 1990s I read a lot of books by Tom Holt. Some I quite liked, others I loved and one or two I really disliked and, in some cases, never finished. But a sucession of books that I didn't like much, culminating in 'Wish you were here' (published 1998, but I attempted to read it a couple of years later), which I never finished reading, put me off Tom Holt books for a bit.

You know the old cliche that every story should have a beginning, a middle and an end? Well, I found that Tom Holt books generally had good and interesting beginnings, clever and sometimes inspired endings, but often got a bit lost in the middle somewhere. It was as if he had a great idea, wrote it down in full and then thought 'hmm, this isn't long enough, I need to pad it out somehow' and added a few unnecessary twists and turns in the middle somewhere.

But anyway, 'The Portatble Door' got quite good reviews and sounded a bit more interesting than some of his late 90s output, so I finally got around to reading it.

Its good. Its funny. Its clever. It even has moments of greatness. Oddly enough, it isn't the middle of this book that Tom Holt had problems with, it seems to have been the beginning. The beginning of the book seems to go on for ages, indeed, it felt like well past the halfway point in the book before the story got going properly. Certainly its past halfway before the portable door of the title actually comes into the story and we (and indeed the characters in the story) begin to work out what is going on. Or rather, what is going on is revealed to the characters about halfway through the book and it feels like the majority of the actual story doesn't even begin until that point.

The book tells the story of Paul Carpenter, a reasonably talent free young man who has left school but so far failed to find a job. We meet him at his interview to be a general office dogsbody at a company called J.W. Wells & Co. While waiting for the interview he meets a skinny and sulky girl who he is instantly drawn to and, against all probability, both he and the girl (who we eventually find out is called Sophie) get jobs at J.W. Wells & Co. Given his CV, you wouldn't think that Tom Holt actually spent much of his time doing dull office jobs, so I guess he's spoken to a number of people who have done exactly that, and has channeled their experiences into the first half of this book. You see, in the first half of the book, before we really find out what is going on, we find out about Paul and Sophie and the dull, pointless, weird and occasionally inexplicable things they are given to do as office juniors. It is the office job from hell. Possibly quite literally.

But I won't spoil the surprise of what the company actually is and does. You can find that out by reading the book. Despite being a slow starter, it is a good and entertaining book and I'd recommend it to anyone who likes a bit of weirdness in their life.

It even verges close to being 'literature' at some points (not merely 'genre fiction' which most folk will label it as) as the book does touch on big themes in human experience. I suppose the main theme of the book is that you are not defined by what you do (in terms of a job, I mean), or what you look like, or even what species you are, its who you are underneath your skin that counts.

And the story of Paul Carpenter doesn't end there. There are three other books in the series, so far, so I'll probably get around to reading the next one - 'In your dreams' - sometime.

For what its worth, I found the first few of Tom Holt's fantasy books the most entertaining, everything from 'Expecting someone taller' (1987) and 'Who's afraid of Beowulf' (1988) through to 'Faust among equals' (1994). After that things got a bit too weird and convoluted for my liking, although 'My Hero' (1996) was good.

Torchwood: S2E3: To the last man

2008-02-05T11:02:00.000Z

Delayed review of last week's Torchwood episode...

I think this was one of those episodes which shows just what Torchwood is supposed to be. Creepy stuff going on in Cardiff, a bit of sci-fi technobabble, a reasonably believable and touching human element and, predictably, more gay snogging. Lets take this character by character:

Gwen seems to have (hopefully temporarily) reverted to her 'What's happening Jack?' not very confident and a bit freaked out by weird stuff persona. Here role here was simply to look worried and get scared.

Toshiko, like all characters in this series, seems to swing both ways. The only love interest she had last series was a female alien, but this time around she has fallen for a frozen bloke she only sees once a year. Somehow that was quite believable.

Ianto snogged Jack. Sorry, but I just don't buy that. Obviously, in watching sci-fi, you have to suspend disbelief to a certain extent, but while I can accept the space-time rift in Cardiff allowing folk to walk between 1918 and 2008, I'm not sure I believe that Ianto swings both ways.

And the others were just there to make up the numbers this week.

All in all it was quite good, but with disappointing elements. And Tomorrow's episode throws Gwen & Rhys into the melting pot. Could be fun... I'll let you know what I think.

My online life

2008-01-29T08:01:00.000Z

My wife complained at me the other day that I spend too much time on the computer. I suppose I do, but then I thought about it. What are my hobbies?

Go back a decade or two and these were my hobbies:

Listening to music, making compilation tapes, etc.
Playing guitar
Photography
Playing with computers
Watching TV / movies
Canoeing
Reading news, etc.

Only one of those actually involved a computer. But what happened? Well, computers seem to have infiltrated most of my hobbies.

OK, so I don't use a computer to listen to music, I use an iPod. But I have to use the computer to get the music onto the iPod. I use the computer to buy the music. I use the computer to make compilation CDs or 'iMixes'.
Computers still aren't involved in playing guitar (except for the internet being a source of guitar TAB music), but I'm sure its only a matter of time.
All my photography these days is digital. So I use a computer to look at, play with and print out my photos.
Obviously, playing with computers still involves a computer.
I now rent DVDs via the internet and increasingly more TV programmes are available online, its only a matter of time before computers and TV become fused. Indeed, have a look at the newly upgraded Apple TV system - able to download 'rental' movies directly to your TV, this is the future, and its a computer (again).
You know, I can't think of any way a computer can become involved in canoeing...
And, of course, the greatest source of news is online.
Oh, and at work, I spend most of my time doing things on a computer. Even in the lab, everything is recorded and monitored using computers.

So there you have it, my life is increasingly online.

I wonder when we'll get to the stage that the computer is so ubiquitous that we won't actually use the word anymore?

Torchwood: S2E2: Sleeper

2008-01-25T07:19:00.001Z

Thankfully this episode was a lot more subtle than the last with no excessive bisexual snogging and no pointless macho fighting.

Actually, I liked this one a lot. Very human for the most part, but when the aliens acted upon their allegedly well thought-out plan of attack, I didn't quite see why two of these well informed aliens would simply become suicide bombers for no particular purpose. In both instances, surely they could have planted their bombs and then moved out of the way before the things exploded?

And we're still trying to give Ianto a character, I see. Good.

Oh, and I also watched the 7pm repeat of the first episode. In order to turn the '15 cert' 9pm version into a 'PG' 7pm show, all they did was slightly clean up some of the violence and remove a few lines of dialogue (including the 'murder rehab' line which was the only dialogue that bothered me in the original anyway), but all the snogging and innuendo was still intact. I guess kids these days are used to it...

There's only a few scenes of violence in episode 2 that they'll need to clean up. The violence will still happen, but some of it will simply happen offscreen on the 7pm version.

Light and Darkness

2008-01-22T14:38:00.000Z

In November 1988 I experienced both ends of the musical spectrum on two consecutive nights. I saw acoustic guitar playing, Christian singer/songwriter Ian White in concert at 'the Gate' in Dundee on the Sunday night and followed it up with a trip down to Edinburgh the following day to see Iron Maiden in concert in the Edinburgh Playhouse. Heaven to hell in one simple step, or something like that.

I had a similar experience this weekend, although perhaps the contrast wasn't quite so extreme. On Friday night I went to see 'The Burnsong Song House' show which was part of Glasgow's Celtic Connections festival. On Saturday night I saw 'The Stone Gods', which is the new band featuring three out of the four former members of The Darkness - everyone except Justin Hawkins.

The Burnsong Song House was a bit of a hit and miss affair. The idea behind it is that a group of singer/songwriters from diverse musical backgrounds get together for a week and write songs together. They did this back in November last year and this was the second show where they got together to play the songs they wrote together. The primary reason we went was because my wife (and, indeed, her sister & brother-in-law, who we went with) is a big fan of Roddy Woomble (of Idlewild; pictured), who was one of the musicians taking part. Also In the house were Norman Blake (of Teenage Fanclub), Ziggy Campbell (of Found), Louise Quinn (of Quinn), Nuala Kennedy (trad Irish folkster), L-Marie (big woman with a big, soulful voice) and Jo Mango (folky type). And they were joined by Midge Ure for the songwriting, but sadly not for the gig.

It was a mostly entertaining evening, but the word that most springs to mind while trying to describe it is ramshackle. There was little organisation in evidence and even less rehearsal. The majority of the performers were playing or reading lyrics from loads of bits of paper rather than knowing their stuff by heart. And they had never really worked out how many of the songs would end and so quite a lot of songs stopped abruptly.

I'm not so sure the mix of styles worked. The songs hadn't been written by the group as a whole, but rather the various musicians had paired off for each of the days and had written things together. Some of these combinations worked well - I liked most of the songs co-written by Roddy Woomble, Norman Blake and Jo Mango. Some of the ones by Loise Quinn were good too. And although completely not my thing, the two collaborations between L-Marie and Nuala Kennedy were good. Unfortunately Ziggy Campbell had a bad influence on many songs. He generally does weirdy electronica music, which doesn't gel well with traditional folk. Also, having been written in a week, many of the songs were kind of forced and not exactly inspired. One was actually a complete rip-off (I assume unintentionally) of 'Living in the Past' by Jethro Tull and they did admit that another song they had written, but not performed, was basically 'Purple Rain' by Prince. I doubt that many of the songs will ever make their way onto proper recordings. But the show was entertaining, or maybe I just don't get out much.

At the other end of the musical spectrum is heavy metal. The Darkness were always a 'rock' band in my opinion, not 'metal', but The Stone Gods have their sights set on metal, I'd say.

I was a quite big fan of The Darkness. Their first album Permission to Land is one of the albums of the decade in my opinion. Their second album was a much weaker affair with as many 'miss' songs on it as 'hits'. I think the things that made The Darkness great were:

Classic rock guitars, well played, great solos.
Good tunes.
A good sense of humour.
Justin Hawkins' completely OTT vocals.

The Stone Gods don't feature all of these factors. Obviously, they don't feature Justin Hawkins anymore and former bass player of the Darkness (second album only), Richie Edwards, who now does the vocals doesn't try to emulate him. The sense of humour also seems to be lacking. Guitarist Dan Hawkins has said in an interview that the tone of the Stone Gods is very different to that of the Darkness as he is in a very different place now. The tone is much darker, more angry, more serious. But the tunes were good and the classic rock guitars were still in evidence.

The set was only about an hour long and featured only new songs. Nothing by the Darkness, and no cover versions (at least, none that I recognised). The overall feel of the music was an amalgam of Bon Scott era AC/DC, early 90s Metallica and Status Quo.

On the basis of this, I will buy an album when it comes out, but I might not bother going to see them live on any future tours. You see, while the music was good, I found the sight of Richie Edwards tramping round the stage with a goofy grin on his face quite off putting. Unfortunately, Richie Edwards is only a wannabe rock star, not the real deal. He was trying far too hard, and failing. Oh, and the only adjective he seems to know begins with a 'f' - it gets a bit wearing after a while: "The f-ing third night of the f-ing tour and we're in f-ing Glasgow..." You get the idea.

Anyway, that's probably most of my quota for gigs gone for this year already. Except Fish at the Liquid Rooms in March... more on that in about 6 weeks.

And here's a clip of The Stone Gods playing the one acoustic track of the evening.

Dhabba: A highly disappointing Indian restaurant in Glasgow

2008-01-20T21:30:00.000Z

We went out to Dhabba - an award winning 'Authentic North Indian' restaurant in Glasgow city centre - for my brother-in-law's 30th birthday on Saturday.

If that's the authentic thing, I'll take the Anglicised version any day of the week!

It was all style over content - a very nice looking place, well laid out, very classy. But with totally non-remarkable food and offensive waiters.

The food was over priced
There wasn't much choice
Only a few starters, all very similar
The staff were exceedingly reluctant to serve tap water (indeed, when asked for some later in the evening, one waiter brought only a single glass, thumped it down on the table and said 'tap water - its free!' in a very grumpy tone)
One waiter got very, very annoyed with us when 3 people (on a table of 13) changed seats between the starter and the main course
The same waiter also got very grumpy when we wanted to order our own starters, rather than having them bring a selection of starters to share
They clearly interpret the word 'tandoori' to mean 'burnt'
And the list went on...

The most notable thing was that at the end of the evening, not one of the people on the table commented on how nice the food was.

It was adequate food, over priced, with bad service. Not just poor service, but bad service.

Rant over. Thank you for listening.

Torchwood: S2E1: Kiss, kiss, bang, bang

2008-01-17T13:53:00.000Z

And so Torchwood returns with a bang. Two bangs and two kisses if the title is to be believed. Actually many more of both once you watch the episode...

But was it any good? Well, for the most part I enjoyed it. But once again it did contain (as Marcus put it last time around) "All that I dislike about Russell T writ large."

So, in the 21st century, it appears that all the cool people are sexually ambiguous and are quite prepared to swing either way when flirted with. Even Ianto. Sex and money are the only two reasons for doing anything. And life is cheap. I really disliked the throwaway comment about murder rehab - that tarnished the character of Captain Jack more than almost anything else, in my opinion.

So what's new? Well, it still looks like Angel - even more so now that it has James Masters in it as another 'Captain' - but with a BBC budget, so the car chase scenes looked really cheaply done. The script was written so that all the characters were reintroduced - several times, just in case you missed the first character summary. And everything was bold and in-yer-face. There was no room for subtlety here. But Ianto has a character now and Gwen has stepped out of her 'what's happening Jack?' insecure persona and into a much more confident and, hopefully, interesting character. Actually, the only thing that didn't ring true about Gwen was that she was still with Rhys. The others were much the same as before.

(At one point, when my wife asked something, I referred to Owen as 'the ugly one' as I have always thought he was particularly unattractive and am always surprised when he is given stories where he picks up women with ease. To my surprise, my wife said he was 'normal looking' and actually ranked him as better looking than 'cheekbones' Masters - who I know has a rather large female fanbase. Oh well, it just goes to demonstrate my opinion that men and women have very different ideas of what is attractive to the other sex.)

And so we come to Captain John. Not the most inspired character name they could have chosen, and when he appeared it seemed to me that the Adam Ant style white stripe across his nose was missing.

So he has a history with Captain Jack. They kiss, they fight, its all very macho. Clearly they have a lust/hate relationship and Jack doesn't trust him at all. And yet he does trust him and allows the team to walk straight into a trap because of this. But although he's clearly in some future episodes, I assume at least we've got all the Jack/John snogging over and done with.

Torchwood is back. Hopefully we'll get a wee bit more subtlety in future episodes and characters that aren't just caricatures. But I am interested to see what happens next and what happens when Martha turns up, so I'll be watching.

I'm also intrigued as to how they're going to make that episode child friendly enough for the 7pm showing for younger Doctor Who fans. I'd have thought they'd have to chop a full 10 minutes out of that one...

Xobni

2008-01-17T13:44:00.000Z

Click on it. Please.

Xobni is an application that works with MS Outlook and makes it cooler. But in order to get the beta version demo, I need you, the reader of this blog, to click on that button and find out about it for yourself. Then you can get your own button and other people can click on that too... and so on.

Go on. Click.

The Northern Lights / The Golden Compass

2008-01-04T18:00:00.000Z

Last month I listened to the unabridged audio book of 'The Northern Lights' by Philip Pullman. Last night I went to the cinema and saw the movie 'The Golden Compass' based on that book. Here are my thoughts on both...

Much has already been said on the subject of the anti-religious message in the book(s) and how this has been played down (or dumbed down) for the film, but if you actually consider 'The Northern Lights' by itself, without reference to either of the books that follow, the message is not as clear or as anti-religious as some believe. Certainly, in the book, the Magisterium (i.e. the church) is portrayed as being a sinister, corrupt and possibly evil organisation. Similarly, in the film, the Magisterium are clearly made out to be the 'bad guys', although here the picture is painted in much broader brush strokes. But neither the book or the film goes as far as to suggest that there is any spiritual power behind the Magisterium, it could simply be an entirely man-made organisation. Of course, if you've read the other books, you'll know that 'The Authority' (i.e. God) is a character with a part to play, but that is not clear in the first book or film.

Possibly the greatest achievement of the book is the concept of 'deamons', the animal-like personifications of the souls - and constant companions - of every human in Lyra's world. At the start of the book the concept is completely alien to the reader (or, in my case, listener) but Pullman conveys the concept so well that by the middle of the book the reader is truly shocked by the idea of separating the human from their deamon, so the experiments at Bolvangar seem really horrific. In the film the deamon concept is also handled well and must have been a nightmare for the animators. Perhaps the film should have emphasised the idea that humans and their deamons can't be separated by more than a few metres and that there is physical pain if this is extended. Also, the horror of the chamber in Bolvangar is lost in the film because no real explanation is given, there is no warning of what might happen, and it all happens so quickly that the importance of the scene is lost. Indeed, that scene is probably the film's greatest failing.

Dust. The book and the film are all about dust. In the book, dust is something mysterious that Lyra is keen to find out about. In the film there isn't half the mystery about it and it is more just taken as being part of the world, but isn't really very interesting. One of the key things about dust in the book is omitted from the film (though may be at the start of the next one, I suppose) when Lyra and Pan discuss dust and decide that if the Magisterium and Mrs Coulter, etc. think that dust is bad, maybe it's actually good... But what dust actually is is not revealed in either the book or the film - its one of the mysteries that we hope will be revealed in future bits of the story.

One of my favourite things about The Northern Lights was the concept of 'ambaric' power. This is mentioned several times but never explained in the book. Although (slight spoiler here) I was really disappointed by the discovery in the third book that ambaric and electric power were just the same thing, it would have been cool if they had turned out to have been different somehow. In the film, however, although it is never named, various things (airships, carriages, etc.) are apparently powered by cool, blue, gyroscopic machines, which I assume to be an imagining of ambaric power. Nice touch.

One of the oddest decisions in the film was to change the sequence of events from that in the book. I was surprised that the re-ordered sequence of events worked quite well. Thus the big fight at Bolvangar was moved to the end of the film, rather than the end of the middle section of the book, and the bear fight was moved earlier in the film rather than being towards the end of the book. The only thing contrived about the change in order was the explanation (or lack thereof) of why the raiders should have taken Lyra to the bear king as a gift. In the book it makes sense that they take her to Bolvangar, but taking her to the bears makes no sense.

In summary, the book is a great read full of action and big concepts which are thought provoking and interesting. The film dispenses with much of the subtlety in the book and makes everyone clearly good or bad (except Lord Asriel, who remains ambiguous), but is a surprisingly faithful adaptation (faithful to the spirit of the book, if not the chronology), which is gloriously realised and reasonably gripping. I'd recommend both.

However, in my opinion, the second book is not as good as the first and the third is disappointing, so we'll see what happens with the next two films...

By the way, I think the book(s) would have been better adapted into a TV series or mini-series, as the books are quite episodic in nature, but I guess that hasn't happened. Also, I really do recommend the audiobook versions of the books. They're read by the author himself, but all the dialogue is performed by actors, so it feels more like a radio play than a talking book. Very nice.

What's the difference?

2008-01-02T17:19:00.000Z

Can anyone tell me the difference between this:

Each tablet contains 200 mg of the active ingredient ibuprofen (as ibuprofen lysine).

Also contains: Povidone, sodium starch glycollate, magnesium stearate, hypromellose, talc, Opaspray White M-1-7111 B (contains hypromellose and titanium dioxide) and Opacode Black S-1-8152HV (contains iron oxide, shellac, soya lecithin and antifoam DC1510).

and this:

Each tablet contains 200 mg of the active ingredient ibuprofen (as ibuprofen lysine).

Also contains: Povidone, sodium starch glycollate, magnesium stearate, hypromellose, talc, Opaspray White M-1-7111 B (contains hypromellose and titanium dioxide) and Opacode Black S-1-8152HV (contains iron oxide, shellac, soya lecithin and antifoam DC 1510).

Any ideas?

Funny thing is, these retail for different amounts in Boots the chemists... The migraine ones are about 20p more expensive. Why?

Hogmanay

2008-01-02T12:50:00.000Z

Doctor Who: Voyage of the Damned

2008-01-01T08:37:00.000Z

Hmmm. This one looked good but was lacking in substance. Just a load of disaster movie and sci-fi cliche's rolled into one, together with some special effects. Kylie was under-used and her story arc was ultimately disappointing.

And why, oh why does every giant spaceship have a huge chasm down the middle of it that our heroes have to cross at some point? We've seen that far too many times before!

But, I am looking forward to Torchwood and the new series of Doctor Who - the teasers looked interesting enough.