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30th July I don't actually believe that the following story will prove to be true. It appears to be correct at press time but such things don't happen in real life and, tenuous as my grip on reality can be, this is reasonable real life. You remember I mentioned, way back in July 2006 when we were all younger, that my car makes a funny noise while stuck in traffic. The engine seems louder than it ought to be for no appreciable reason. I was waiting at some traffic lights today and, true to form, it was growling away like a tin dog having philosophical issues about whether canned dog food was akin to cannibalism. At this point I can claim my sonic screwdriver may have fixed my car. I opened the glove compartment to take my phone out and saw that my stylish piece of 2005 merchandise was lying in a dark corner. I'd taken it to work one Saturday morning during release testing so I could do the HILARIOUS~! joke about using it to fix the server if it was having issues. We literally never stop laughing. Anyhoozle, I took the fun plastic toy out of the glove compartment and put it in a carrier bag. I've not had the noise since. A noise which, with hindsight, could well have been the vibration of something vaguely loose in the plastic lined glove compartment. I won't bother being optimistic about it because optimism just gets you bitten on the ass by this miserable and vengeful world but sonic screwdriver anecdotes are always good. And while you're already laughing at me I can finally find a chance to confess I was watching the Inferno DVD (commentary) and Uncle Barry was talking about CSO. In my unreliable mind I thought I'd read that CSO was first used in season eight (all those dodgy non-sets in Terror of the Autons). Even though it is obvious that CSO is used in season seven, that piece of trivia had lodged in my head. Since Uncle Barry never actually said that season seven was the first time they'd used CSO I found myself wondering whether it had been used any earlier. Had they, perhaps, experimented with it in season six. Which is, of course, impossible for obvious reasons. I feel a strange sense of peace now I've admitted that. Not that I have actual peace of mind though. That will never happen. In the meantime, here are a bunch of Zidane gifs that were posted on a board.
29th July The Ian Levine forum mole story got more complicated. The "original" resurfaced and claimed the "new" one was a fake. Then it came out that the "original" was three people sharing a login. Some believe that the "original" is a fake and is trying to undermine the "real" one. Or that the "new" one is one of the "original" three. It is wacky and it's reasonably amusing to see people squabbling over something so utterly silly. I hope it carries on. I hope it becomes like Luche Libre and we'll get El Hijo de Tom Quinn, Tom Quinn II, III and IV, El Tom Quinn Negro, Tom Quinncito and El Hijo de Tom Quinn Negrocito II. Then they all come together for a steel cage battle royal where the last man left has to unmask. And when it does, it will be Christopher Eccleson under the mask and none of us will really understand what is going on because everyone will be speaking in Spanish. Something like that anyway. Or a one on one match between Ian Levine and Russell T Davies to see who really owns Doctor Who. Tom Quinn is the referee and the big selling point will be who he sides with. [insert joke about Vince Russo booking it so Levine and Davies join forces, beat up Tom Quinn, Davies then tells Levine all the inside gossip, Levine turns on Davies, joins forces with Quinn, then Quinn turns on Levine and teams up with Davies and it is revealed that in fact Vince Russo is the real producer of Doctor Who. Then Mr McMahon buys it for a little under five pounds and cancels it]. I will admit to having watched too much wrestling related stuff over the past couple of days. First the excellent documentary "Heroes of World Class" which follows the rise and fall of World Class Championship Wrestling and their biggest stars, the Von Erich brothers. It is a sad story - the company caught fire in 1983 and was hugely successful until probably late 1986 when the burden of tragedy caught up with them once and for all. There were, for all intents and purposes, four Von Erich brothers. David died in 1984, Mike was within hours of death in 1985 (and the effects left him brain damaged and a shell of his former self), Kerry lost his foot in a motorbike crash in 1986, Mike killed himself in early 1987. Two other Von Erich boys died - Jack at the age of 8 in 1959, and Chris at the age of 21 in 1991. Kerry would go on to commit suicide in 1993. With each death (another star - Gino Hernandez - died at the peak of his fame and in his mid-20s) the people of Texas became more and more depressed. The rasslin was meant to be fun. It was meant to be a way of letting off steam every week, of being entertained by some of the best workers in the business, of living in a world where the good guys came out on top no matter what the odds. Once it stopped being fun and the cracks in the fantasy became too big to ignore the crowds stopped coming. Now there is one out of six still alive and that gave the film its happy ending. Kevin has come to terms with the loss of his five brothers, his father, his mother, his superstardom, his business and his family's good name. He has a new family now, his faith is stronger than ever and as we saw him walk around the building which housed wrestling every week in Dallas (shortly before the building was demolished) it was a poignant farewell to a time which must've looked like it would last forever but which ended twenty years ago. Then there was "Behind Closed Doors" with Steve Corino where he did a commentary on some old ECW matches and, because he's one of the few guys in the business who doesn't take himself too seriously, it was very funny and honest. He tells you when he sucks, he points out when he's done something badly, he laughs when he fucks something up. He was in hysterics when, while brawling in the crowd, a child runs over to him and bounces off. He didn't notice it at the time even though this boy went flying. I love DVD commentaries - as you know - and this was great. The Tommy Dreamer fat jokes didn't get old at any point - it was like Dreamer at a hotdog stand - after two hundred of them you still wanted the 201st. I'm going to have an early night and listen to part two of "The Nowhere Place". And the end of the first part. I think I must've nodded off about five minutes early because everything was perfectly normal and understandable and a bit bland (very Briggs) and then all I remember was Colin Baker saying something like "half a million years old" before the end music played. On the subject of which, is it me or have they tried to beef up Dominic's season 23 theme? It sounded fine on TV but on CD it has always been very thin and weedy. So if they have added a bit of weight to it then good for them. Unlike Tommy Dreamer and I a bit of extra weight will do it good.
27th July There is a mole at the Ian Levine forum. It is all terribly exciting - someone who claims to be a BBC insider is giving away confidential information about the next series of Doctor Who. Actually, no, someone who claims to be the same someone who claimed on another forum to be a BBC insider is giving away confidential information about the next series of Doctor Who. Although, even that is a bit inaccurate - there is someone who claims to be the same someone who claimed on another forum to be a BBC insider is giving vague hints about things which might possibly be happening at some point somewhere with some people in it. We were introduced to the existence of this man - "Tom Quinn", a Spooks homage - with the following enigmatic remark.
The original "Tom Quinn" was apparently banned from OG for revealing alleged spoilers in the board's spoiler section. I know - that sounds silly to me too. Anyway, his Q&A thread has already grown to 14 pages of which at least 12 are taken up with a dreary squabble between members about whether "TQ" is real, whether it matters if he's real, if there is a moral dilemma about him being real, whether people who think he's real are idiots, whether people who think he's a fraud are idiots, whether people who try and stop the arguments are idiots, whether everyone else but himself is an idiot, and so on and so on. Levine has made the board members only to stop the hoard of tabloid hacks who would no doubt use "TQ" and his posts as the basis for their next few issues. I don't really care if he's real or not. Except that I would prefer to think that someone with a job like that wouldn't be dumb enough to flagrantly breach their contract and so throw their career away just for a bit of internet fame and praise. Especially when they'd be throwing it away for internet fame, praise and the inevitable abuse which arises because no one can ever agree about anything. The whole arena of online spoilers is a strange one. Some people avoid absolutely everything - even things officially released by the BBC - because they want to come to it pure. Others (and I fall into this camp for the most part) take what is given, don't actively seek out secrets but don't really mind if they see the odd spoiler here and there. And some can't get enough of the classified info, guzzling it up like a fat girl who wants the cool boys to like her. But most online "news" is either officially announced or it is speculation and lies dressed up as "spoilers". Anyone can post anything online and there will be people who believe it and people who don't. And by the time the next series airs everyone will have forgotten all about it. Let's take an example - suppose someone had said this time last year that the season two finale would see Daleks against Cybermen. I would've dismissed it as being nonsense - typically unimaginative rubbish from someone who wants to be a liar but doesn't quite have the imagination. Or say I believed it - nine months of imagining what SFX could do with such a war. The reality would then have let me down. Maybe I would've done what a lot of spoiler-seekers want to do and I claim this bit of "newz" and seek to get myself over by telling people my secret. They would laugh at me and think I was the worst kind of loser geeky nobody. I think I had a point about half an hour ago. It was probably something along the lines of how the internet is full of liars who want to sound important, full of rubbish passing itself off as news, full of people wanting to violently agree or disagree with everything and that spoilers are a waste of time because it's only yourself and your subsequent enjoyment that are affected by them. Are spoilers better than sex? They are unreliable, they cause arguments and they leave you feeling confused or disappointed. They sound almost exactly like sex to me.
25th July I would say this has been a good day. Over the weekend a radical and in-depth cleanup was done and a whole bunch of the nitty and the gritty within our much loved system was cleared out. With around five hundred task-types available and a dozen mainframe systems attached to each there unfolds a complicated web... you can't fold a web... there exists a complicated web of possible, probably, unlikely and impossible connections. The team managers were asked which were not required - which should be deleted. Utterly. That word "deleted" seems to have been somewhat ambiguous and confusion arose when "Yes - that is never needed and can be deleted" was translated by the technical boys and girls into "We can delete that - it isn't needed". Come Monday and questions began to be raised. So we've essentially spent two days explaining to people the changes they either asked for or signed off as correct.
We've also been scooting around explaining a new screen to people. It is
something that would've been massively less useful had we not fought a seemingly
endless battle with "Why weren't we shown it before today?" they asked. "Because you didn't bother to come to the drop in session a fortnight ago" we said in more diplomatic terms. "And you didn't read the emails about it" we would've added if required. "Or read the news stories on the log in page" we had in our pockets just in case. Short of nailing their eyes to a TFT there isn't much more that could've been done. Those that bothered to take an interest had it all explained, had their say in how it would look and think it is a good thing. Those that didn't just complain about it. There is a lesson in their somewhere. And yet I felt very much in the mood to be nice to everyone and sort out their problems like a cross between Marjorie Proops and Hannibal from the A-Team. I've spent too long cooped up either on the Dark Side or just concentrating on user acceptance testing. It is nice to be back amongst...
...the people. And my stats seem to be working again. I passed the 200,000 visitor mark and they just sort of conked out. Lycos are rubbish. They returned this afternoon, after almost a week, to bring the news that I can add Essex FM to the list of radio stations which have shilled Little Skaro. Radio 2 is the only one wealthy enough to have actual sound archives so I don't know what was said but I'm sure they were adorable. Excelis isn't great so far.
23rd July I'm cross. I am. I'm cross. The one consolation in this whole "summer" thing is that I get a nice, quick, easy journey to work. It helps make up for -
So to go door to door in fifteen minutes is a nice way of making up for it being the worst of all possible seasons. Except last year it was ruined by a set of malicious road works which undid any good that the absence of over-cautious parents taking their lazy children to school in "people carriers" brought. This year though I don't have a set of malicious road works to annoy me. I have three. Bastard cock-witted cunt-wads. It is going to take longer in the height of summer than it does in the cold, wet, miserable, dark and snowy depths of winter. And it all starts tomorrow. I hope the Excelis Trilogy is good because that's all that is standing between me and a lot of seated misery.
22nd July I wasn't expecting much from "The Story of Light Entertainment" as it would, no doubt, offer a dumbed down history of the double act - rushing through the "olden days" so it could spend the bulk of its time lavishing praise on stars of the last ten years. It is the trend these days for such retrospectives to be propaganda tools by a light entertainment division desperate to portray itself as the golden age of comedy. So it is French & Saunders, Little Britain and Vic'n'Bob who are the greatest comedians to ever decide to tell jokes while standing next to someone of the same gender rather than those who were doing in front of ten times as many people in the 60s and 70s. Thankfully I was completely and utterly wrong. This programme got everything right, from Stephen Fry's narration to the prominence they gave each of the acts under discussion. I consider myself a fairly comedy-literate sort of person but Mike and Bernie Winters have been off the agenda for so long that I had never seen them perform. I thought they broke up when Mike died - turns out he's still with us and living in Florida. Just because history has forgotten them doesn't mean this marvellous documentary ignored them. I have no desire to see any of their shows but it is nice to see them remembered. The show wasn't afraid to go into dark places when it had to. The break up of Little & Large pulled no punches - they don't like each other, they probably will never speak again and we are left thinking of them as one bitter little man and one fat man who knows he's going to die soon. Cannon & Ball on the other hand were strangely heart warming. Their break-up was covered but so was their reconciliation. It may not by your or my idea of a good night out but it was nice to hear they are closer than ever and touring a comedy and gospel show. We got to hear a bit of the backstage gossip about the rise and fall of Newman & Baddiel / Baddiel & Newman, the familiar old story of Pete'n'Dud's demise was given another airing and, thanks to a brief glimpse of them in the background of a French & Saunders sketch, I can claim Mel and Sue were featured in the programme. The likes of Dawn & Jennifer, Rik & Ade, Smith & Jones and others of that era got their couple of minutes while Fry and Laurie - no doubt due to the modesty of the narrator - were dismissed with a single sentence and roughly half a line of dialogue. The show ended with the message that the double act is alive and well in three very different guises - the surrealism of Reeves & Mortimer, the old fashioned Light Entertainment of Ant & Dec and the full-costumed character sketches of Matt Lucas & David Walliams. There were two overriding themes that I got from the programme. The first is that, with just one single exception, none of them seemed very funny. A combination of over-familiar material ("Fork handles", "Bottom" violence, the few surviving Pete'n'Dud sketches) and poorly chosen clips would leave a viewer who had never watched television before thinking that double acts were rubbish. When you can't even choose a funny "History Today" bit you know your VT editor is in the wrong job. The story the documentary told was done well and the range of archive material was considerable (even if they tried to pass later M&W footage off as being from "Running Wild") but I laughed very little. Perhaps it has all aged badly or perhaps the Winters Brothers, Cannon & Ball, Little & Large and co were never funny. Loud, certainly, but never funny. The one single exception was, of course, Morecambe and Wise. I think they are probably humanity's greatest achievement. I have certainly never seen or heard anything on stage, screen, film or CD to match their absolute perfection. We saw the end of the "Grieg Piano Concerto" routine and even though I must've seen it close to a bazillion times it was still brilliant. From the tune Eric plays to the absolutely deadpan Andrew Preview to the way Eric grabbed his lapels to the legendary punch line. It could not be improved in any way. Even George Lucas and his army of technicians couldn't make it better. Find me a drug that would do what Morecambe and Wise can still do to me and I might make it to forty. Britain would be a better place if Eric Morecambe was our patron saint. And throw in "Bring Me Sunshine" as our national anthem too.
20th July I went to a workshop today. Don't worry, I'm not going all butch and practical - this was less about DIY tools and more about "coming up with ideas" for 2007. On one level it was a worthwhile exercise because it brought certain things out into the open and aired them. On the other hand it was the same things that we've been raising for 18 months and which have never changed. There are too many bad team managers who mean that change stops before it ever reaches the people under them. I've spoken to a lot of people (and heard a lot more talking) about how much they dislike our ever improving system. But - and this is the key thing - once they are "forced" into using it they realise it is better than anything they had before. It is different but "different" is not another word for "bad". In the short term it makes things more confusing, in the longer term it makes things so much easier. The problem is that not everyone is being "forced" to use it. And I keep putting "forced" in inverted commas because it is essentially a word with a negative stigma used here in a positive context. The team managers need to be "forcing" their charges to jump in with both feet, to feedback any and all concerns or questions, to see it as a help not a hindrance, and so on. After a year and a half there is still too much resistance and way too much apathy. We had a "drop in" session last week for people to preview new stuff that will be coming in this weekend. In five hours we had exactly one person come and see it. Come Monday there will be plenty of noise and questions and complaints. But until a thing is actually there, in front of people, and not going away they are apathetic. Then they blame us for getting it all wrong. So the moral of this particular story is that there are a handful of team managers who really get it and who take an interest, who come and see us, who know what they want and who persist until they get it. And there is an apathetic majority who don't and who are content merely to complain about things after the fact. Only last week I drafted a new process for getting wider and more timely business input into future development. I am confident that it (or something derived from it) will come into play. I am equally confident that it will do nothing to dispel the apathy from certain quarters. They are stuck in a cycle where they see things aren't exactly how they would like them, they don't say anything, nothing gets changed and so they continue to see things being not exactly how they would like them. I'm not sure whether that qualifies as a cycle now I come to look back at it. But joined up ends or no joined up ends it is still a bad situation. We'd love to have more serious business involvement. I like talking things through with people and figuring out how they can be done. But unless we want to waste lots of time listening to pointless moaning and vague wish-lists there is no way we can go into the departments and solicit suggestions. There are other people to do that. Anyway, I was rubbish at the workshop because there were too many people there and I can only handle lots of people if the floor is handed to me. If I have to actually carve out a bit of attention for myself I don't. Plus, my brain seems to be in Read Only mode at the moment and isn't much good for anything except stopping my head from rattling. Now, away with you - Meltzer has written a big historical piece about the Von Erichs and World Class and I know it is going to be good. Apart, obviously, for the premature deaths of almost everyone involved. I leave you with this bit of Flash - it was discovered after a discussion about wild life and if you listen to it three times it will stick in your head forever. It is also exceptionally cute.
19th July AussieGuy went on one of those rants this afternoon which will make his departure even more regrettable. I had remarked that a the hot weather had reached the stage where our genuine Australian colleague would probably be ready to take off her cardigan. This lit a fuse under (or certainly near) him...
...and so on. All disgracefully old fashioned and not to be desiderated in this most twenty-first of centuries... but he was so animated and so in to his subject that it really was awfully funny. A guilty sort of funny. Elsewhere, we passed the 200,000 visitor mark at around 10 o'clock this evening. That is pretty good going in any language.
14th July So, my pinkness. Mother calls it a "healthy glow" but I maintain it is pink, sore and the result of a day out which would probably have been great if I hadn't (a) had a wretched headache which was not helped by the oppressive weather and (b) got an inability to ever enjoy anything anywhere at any time and with anyone. I think everyone else had a good time - they doted over the baby, relished the sunshine and were pleased to get out to the seaside and have fun. It pretty much exemplified the belief that there is no situation which wouldn't be better without me. I was the spare wheel, the awkward tag along, the redundant party. It was like one of those later episodes of Man About the House where everything revolves around Robin, Chrissy, George and Mildred. The other flatmate - Jo - would have a couple of lines here and there but always be on her way out or doing something elsewhere or have broken down while out in the country. She was there because she was contracted to be in it and that is all. Which is a shame because Jo was always my favourite character. That figures. So we have grandparents, parents, children... and me. In the way. Not able to do anything useful. Just in the way. And just being anywhere is enough to drive me into a state of random anxiety. I love them all dearly and getting this whole new family has been the best thing to happen to me in years (yes, better even than the Steve Wright mention and Bravo showing UFC on a one-day tape delay) but I simply cannot cope with it and surely one day I'm going to fuck it all up so badly that none of them will want to have anything to do with me ever again. Anyhoozle, we ended up in a place called Fun Land (or Pleasure Land or Fun and Pleasure Land or something fun and pleasurable that was built on some land) which had lots of rides that my little nephew was too small to go on. I confess a guilty relief at that. We did go on the log flume thing - half an hour queuing in the baking sun for a two minute amble in a plastic log followed by a lurch up hill and a plunge down hill. Again, not disappointed as I didn't want to go on it but it was a bit pathetic. The ghost train was a text book example of lots of fast turns, darkness passing itself off as scary and a few plastic things which didn't move. I could go on but it would be the miserable ramblings of someone not within the target demographic for the place. There is probably plenty there for the wide-eyed child (preferably one over 1.2m tall) and plenty there for the adult thrill seeker but I am neither. I am a chronic depressive who doesn't really like the outside lane of the motorway, on this day further hampered by dehydration and a headache. I was left not so much with the thrill of the fair but with a huge burden of guilt over the little one's disappointment and the small fortune it cost for him to be disappointed. He's probably forgotten already that he couldn't do everything he wanted to but it'll join the huge mass of guilt which eats away at me long after events have faded into history. On the plus side, Meltzer reports that Forrest Griffin will fight Stephan Bonnar on the undercard of the Chuck Liddell vs Renato Sobral card in August. Griffin-Bonnar 1 is generally regarded as the best UFC fight in history so this should be something special.
13th July I'm very pink this evening. But more about that tomorrow. In the meantime a new service which borrows Sir Stephen Fry to give you - My Readers - the chance to express your feelings about my tedious jottings.
I will also share this snippet from the fringes of Doctor Who fandom which, sadly, isn't heavily edited to make people look foolish. The conversation really did flow this way.
12th July I went to an intranet focus group today. It was lead by the head of Internal Communications and the dialogue went roughly like this - Coms: Do you use the intranet for X, Y or Z? Peeps: We didn't know those were on there! Coms: Oh! Well what do you use it for? Peeps: We like A, B and C. Coms: I didn't know those were on there! Everyone: Ha ha ha! What a terrible intranet we have! I think the main problem is that no one actually knows what the intranet is for. They just know we have to have one. Then they try to think what to put on it. Then they try to think how to get people to read it. Then it stagnates, becomes cluttered and obsolete. Then they decide to redesign and relaunch it and it all starts again. Half of me wants to mock up a front page which would better present what is there and offer scope for future growth. The other half of me doesn't want to get involved because things like this can suck you in and the end rewards are inevitably going to be non-existent because nobody will use it. It is like the company's internal magazine - it looks nice, it is well produced, it looks like it should be of interest - but no one cares. It isn't that our people - me included now - are incapable of producing anything worthwhile, it's that it simply isn't possible to create an intranet that people will want. There are elements which will be used - links to applications or useful websites, and the internal phone directory - but as an overall package it is something that (potentially) looks nice and may impress higher-ups but the users on the ground will always ignore it. But hey - there was a theory for many years that it wasn't possible to make money with a website. They said there was too much free content for it to be feasible to get people to subscribe. Slowly but surely that is changing and maybe intranets can be successful entities. After all, there are few things in heaven and earth that cannot happen in a web browser. Speaking of unlikely things, this blurb is not a joke -
Yes, WWE novels have arrived. Think it sounds bafflingly horrible? Well one guy liked it.
On the grounds that it has to be the worst book ever committed I'm almost tempted to buy it. I'd have to read it in the dark though, just to make sure no one saw me.
11th July So I wait six weeks for the next UFC having thoroughly enjoyed the Hughes vs Gracie show and it sucks. It really sucks. It is one of the worst fighting shows ever to take place on planet Earth. It was dreadful - not one single fight worth seeing, not one single moment to take away and remember. There were exactly two good things about this show - (1) We are finally going to see the biggest MMA dream match possible in 2006 - that being UFC light heavyweight champion, Chuck Liddell, fighting Pride light heavyweight (called middleweight in Japan but still 205lbs) champion, Wanderlei Silva. It will happen in November and it is going to be huge. (2) I didn't pay $49.99 to watch three hours of crap, unlike the Americans. And of those two, only point (2) really stands because the Silva-Liddell announcement was one of the worst pieces of planning I've ever seen. Maybe its because I've seen 20 years of sports entertainment but I know how to book this type of segment. What they should've done -
What actually happened -
About the only part of the show which didn't annoy me was the finish to the Tito-Shamrock fight. People are up in arms about the quick finish but to me it was the right call. We may not like our (real) main event going 90 seconds but Ken Shamrock was elbowed five times in the face and didn't attempt to defend any of them. Had he been hit five more times he wouldn't have defended himself. It is the ref's job to decide whether a fighter is able to defend himself - Shamrock was giving no indication that he could so the fight was stopped. He may have popped back up and protested but if he was fine he only had to give some indication that he was going to at least try to block one of the flurry of elbows raining down on his head. Ultimately, the referee is there to stop anyone from getting badly hurt not to stop a fight because someone is badly hurt. Besides, I can't help wonder whether Shamrock was working the whole thing just to get one more big pay day. Once a carny, always a carny. But the absolute worst fight of the night was Frank Mir's three round victory in his latest comeback match. Mir was a dynamic, skilful and charismatic heavyweight who won the world title and then had his leg shattered in a motorbike accident. Before his accident he was as good an American heavyweight as we've seen in years. Since coming back a few months ago he's been abysmal. He is fat, he has zero cardio and he gives the impression that he does not care at all about fighting. He's just serving out his contract and enjoying his day job more (he's either manager of a strip club or in charge of security at one - either way he looks at naked chicks for a living). It's a shame as quality American heavyweights are extremely rare (the only other one is Josh Barnett and he was forced out of the country when he failed a juice test). Which brings me to my latest Great Idea. The current heavyweight limit is 265lbs. This needs to be lowered to 245lbs. Why? Because guys like Frank Mir can go into the cage looking fat and being out of shape whereas those who fight at lower weights (and have to cut weight to do so) are leaner, have better stamina and are much more motivated. I don't believe there are many (if any) fighters who can make 265 who couldn't make 245 if they worked harder. It would mean far fewer rubbish heavyweight plod-fests, it would put the heavyweights under the same pressures as lighter weights and it would improve the sport's image because there wouldn't be any fat guys slugging it out. And it would mean that a 220 guy who cuts to 205 might consider staying at 220 because they wouldn't run the risk of fighting a guy nearly 50lbs heavier.
9th July I've often been disappointed when I've gone back to shows I've enjoyed in the past. Crime Traveller wasn't the work of innovative quality I'd remembered. Bugs wasn't the fantastic series I thought it was. Even the Professionals has been a tad disappointing. Thank goodness one show hasn't disappointed me - Dempsey and Makepeace. I watched it back in the mid 80s when it was first broadcast. Then in 1995 I found a video in Our Price and rediscovered the joys of transatlantic buddy cop shows. A few more videos, a well timed outing on Granada+ and by 1996 it was consigned to history. A passing fad. Nothing more. Ten years later I was ready to be disappointed. So ready that I got the DVDs in February and hadn't watched any until this weekend. I've devoured almost the entire first series and ordered the second. Everything about it is fantastic - the cast are fantastic, the music is fantastic, the semi-brainless plots are fantastic - it is all great brain candy. And there are few women in TV history to match Glynis Barber in her Makepeace prime. I'm pleased Italy have just won the World Cup. Not for tired, xenophobic, anti-French reasons. Oh no - I'm much deeper than that. I like Italian food. Lots. And Zidane is an idiot. Normally a "head-butt" in football means one guy flicking his fringe in another man's face and the recipient selling it like Kennedy sold the bullet* but this was an unbelievable, unambiguous, untheatrical thump to the chest. Who head-butts people in the chest? Unless you're a violent midget there can be no excuse. And even then its more mitigation than excuse. So he's an idiot, their cuisine is less vegetarian-friendly and so I'm glad they lost. The tournament is now over and maybe Fergie can get on with having the most important summer in the transfer market he's even faced. With people on the way out and money in the chest to spend he needs to get a whole bunch of things right or he's done, the club is going to fall from the mountain and it could be a generation before they're contenders again. I want a pizza now. *this joke is borrowed from young Vincent Verhei of F4Wonline fame. I use it because I like it.
8th July On Thursday something popped into my head. Heroin addicts are in some ways the luckiest people alive. They have a clear ambition, they have the energy to achieve that ambition, they never doubt the focus of their lives, they are driven towards to achievement of a goal which they know will never disappoint them. Not for them apathy or a sense of unfulfilment. They know what they want, they know how to get it and when they get it - boy - is it ever good. And they know it will be good next time and the time after that. Indeed, it will never stop being good as long as they never stop wanting it*. On Friday I read almost the exact same idea in jPod by Douglas Coupland. I knew I was in tune with that book. Indeed, I want to write that book. Go into a parallel world where they've never heard of jPod and write it. Better still, go into a parallel world never having read jPod and write it. I want that muse flowing through my brain. Speaking of parallel worlds... Doomsday was better than I expected. There are niggles of course - giving us a Dalek vs Cyber war after 40 years and then blowing it off like it is WWF vs WCW in 2001. Since the story wasn't about the war why waste the war as the backdrop for this story? And how many more times are we going to meet "the last Daleks in the universe"? It's getting dangerously close to the old joke about finding a Japanese soldier on a island who doesn't know the War is over. Open a door in a top secret institute and you'll find a Dalek popping up and asking which direction he should go in order to find a Time Lord to exterminate. And how the heck did the cute one from Torchwood manage to retain her sense of self despite being converted? And why did the newly converted Cybs get sucked through the void if they've never travelled between worlds and so aren't tainted? And who really believes we'll never see the Tylers and Mickey again? And all the "this is how I died" stuff was a massive cheat. But actually it was a great episode. Season finale's are generally a disappointment because the format of 45 minutes build up last week and 45 minutes of payoff doesn't really work. In some ways it's a shame that the Next Generation model of the season finale being part one of the two parter was never really used elsewhere. This one wasn't a disappointment. I know it wasn't a disappointment because none of the niggles above bothers me. I seem to be incapable of explaining why I like something - only why I don't. So if the inexplicable good feeling outweighs the explicable bad then it must've been a good episode. Oh and that final scene was wonderfully weird. "What?" "What?" "What???"
*I don't actually believe this by the way. It is just a trick with words. Obviously there isn't really such thing as fulfilment.
7th July Ok so it isn't fame in the sense of fame and fortune but...
...isn't bad for starters.
5th July And so another member of the gang decides to call it a spade. AussieGuy is returning to his native land in August and - amidst the outpourings, wailings and general gnashings of teeth - thoughts turned to his possibly replacements. Those in the know (i.e. me and TheArtist) have four in mind who could apply. Of those four, one is Twat, one is uberTwat and the other two are more than welcome to join our band. I doubt we'll get a say in it but with luck their various reputations will precede them and we'll either get TheArtist's Friend D or the lovely C come the arse-end of next month. Of course this is all speculation at this stage - they may decide not to replace him. Or to replace him with someone from elsewhere. Or a dark horse candidate might appear. Or something. However you slice it I don't like changing stuff that works so here's hoping we get someone good, someone who will fit in and (if we're putting ticks in all the boxes) someone hot. I am, meanwhile, in a state of many-and-various miscellaneous anxieties. In between worrying about everything and worrying about nothing I'm convinced my car is making strange and potentially devastating noises. In a vain effort to minimise the ongoing panic I've joined an unnamed royal breakdown society. But that would only work if my anxiety was rational and it isn't so it won't. I wish there were emotional breakdown services one could join. At the first sign of going peculiar you phone them and they send a trained professional in a luminous bib around to get you started again. Although if it's one of those episodes where you forget what shoes are for or are utterly unable to come into contact with another living being then it might not be entirely successful. Still, it is an excellent idea on paper - very creovative - very blue sky thinking outside the box - and the lack of practical application should in no way de-emphasise the potential win-win gain scenarios. So I'm seventy quid down on the day and am guaranteed not to have the necessary paperwork when the time comes to use them. We also got our first look at Billie's
replacement today (unless you were one of the zillion or so people who
saw the press release early after the BBC thought they could get away
with putting it online 12 hours before the launch). I'm not massively
fond of having an actress who was only in it last weekend and playing a
different character as that stretches the suspension of disbelief a
little (unless the Doctor's first words to her are "Didn't I once pull
your brain out through your ear?") Still, coming back as a companion a
few episodes after your debut worked for Sir Peter Purves and you can't
argue with that. Let's hope "Martha" isn't Welsh. RTD has his Welsh
agenda* and his gay agenda* so let's all hold hands and hope she isn't
Welsh...
*according to scary internet people on message boards Oh and my current hypochondria dealybop is that I've got RSI from spending sixteen hours a day using a mouse. I googled the symptoms and I've got pretty much all of them. Dunno what, if anything, I'll do about it but it would be good to maybe not spend sixteen hours a day using a mouse. Hence the brevity of this update.
4th July Two things struck me as amusing while watching a DVD of UFC 6. The first is the wonderfully old fashioned caption - dating from 1995 - from the early days of the WWW.
The second is this brief clip* of an interview being conducted between the American presenter (right of screen) and a Brazilian fighter (middle). The latter speaks no English and is being "assisted" by his Lawrence Miles look-a-like translator (left) *right-click and "save as"
3rd July This story from Media Guardian struck me as particularly absurd. The complete text runs...
Ok, firstly, if everything is filmed 24 hours a day how can this incident be "alleged"? Unless there was "Dead Famous" style wackiness with faked footage and the like it must've been recorded from at least one angle. Secondly, "The alleged victim, 22-year-old Camilla Halliwell, was then forced to re-live the experience before millions of viewers when she was questioned about the incident" is unbelievably hypocritical - if the network has taken a moral high ground and refused to air the footage they cannot possibly justify grilling her about it in lieu of footage. Thirdly, "Stephen Conroy, who said the incident was so serious that all the prize money should be donated to groups that help sex assault victims" is the sort of witless thing that witless people say to try and get themselves face-time in witless discussions about witless "issues". Why should the winning contestant(s) give their money to charity? Why not call upon the network and the production company to shell out? Because he's a politician and doesn't want to upset potential face-time opportunities. Fourthly, the phrase "the behaviour of the two men...has outraged campaigners against sexual violence and politicians" - two things well worth campaigning against I think you'll agree. Fifthly, compare this remark "Di McLeod...said her main concern was that Channel Ten was minimising the behaviour of the two young men" with this one "Karen Willis, of the New South Wales Rape Crisis Centre said: firstly she was distressed and secondly she tried to minimise the event". Either the incident should be minimised or it shouldn't. Hacks writing opinionated copy should get their position sorted or else buy a thesaurus. Not that I'm in any way defending any of those involved - two boozed up dickheads go a bit too far with a boozed up slapper to the delight of a voyeuristic viewership and a greedy network, the whole thing is blown out of all proportion by opportunistic politicians and campaigners keen to feed their own gravy train. In the end everyone gets what they want - money and publicity. After all, "There was no malice intended ... and when I said very specifically to John, 'Don't. No,' he didn't do it," she said" doesn't quite fall within the normal definition of rape. And if you're fond of caffeinated drinks you can now find out how many you need to drink before you can reasonably expect caffeine poisoning.
2nd July Sign of the times number 94 - seen at the "Wacky Warehouse" ball park in which m'little nephew and his posse were playing during his latest birthday dealybop. This was the list of items banned from being taken into the ball park area.
No knives??? Is there an epidemic of knife wielding six year olds that no one has told me about? Or is it just one of those legal things where they have to put it in writing to avoid trouble later -
In other news, this still from the Inferno documentary suggests that John Levene has spent the last thirty years turning into his own Spitting Image puppet.
1st July So England are out of the World Cup again. It is the English nature to want to blame someone for the failure. Some will blame Sven, some will blame Rooney, some will blame the referee, some will blame Manchester United, some will blame the media, some will blame the weather, some will even blame Russell T Davies. But the reality is they weren't good enough. The whole team. The whole squad. The whole England machine. They didn't have one good game. They didn't even have one good half of a game. There was no self belief, no national pride, no team spirit. Contrast it with the French who were unfancied going in - an awkward mix of yesterday and tomorrow - but who weathered the storm of criticism and got it together when it mattered. They took the game to Brazil and HUMBLED~! the world champions. England couldn't humble Trinidad or Tobago (let alone their combined might). Wuh wuh wuh Michael Owen's injury wuh wuh wuh An already injured player gets injured and this is an excuse because? To take one injured striker to a World Cup is unfortunate. To take two just looks like carelessness. But Sven could've taken a couple more strikers and it wouldn't have made any difference. When Steven Gerrard doesn't seem to give a toss why would you expect anyone else to? Bottom line - if you can't score a goal in 120 minutes of football you simply do not deserve to advance. End of story. Germany scored against Argentina, France scored against Brazil. Even Japan scored against Brazil. England couldn't score against Portugal. When Rooney was sent off (a bad decision as he either put a foot somewhere he shouldn't because he was off balance and looking the other way or he gave a gentle shove to someone - neither was violent, dangerous or warranted punishment) we were at the hour mark. Mark Lawrenson - for whom I have an entirely irrational hatred - started talking about how England would have to hang on for penalties. For the next hour (that's the next HOUR~!) he kept banging on about how well England were doing, bravely battling for penalties. I don't think it even entered his mind that England could or would be able to actually win the game for real. If an excitable colour commentator who would have "Stevie" Gerrard's babies if he could doesn't think England can score a single goal in an hour of football against a second tier side in a World Cup quarter final then they must be a poor side indeed. And they were. And now they're going home, leaving "Football" behind where it belongs. Fuck the World Cup, fuck Wimbledon, fuck whatever cricket we're sucking at - England has exactly one sporting hero right now. Michael "The Count" Bisping.
In other news, I bought Danny Wallace's "How To Start Your Own Country" on DVD today from Manchester. Not an especially noteworthy thing except it was recalled a day or two after its release (for reasons unknown) and vanished from shelves almost before it was put out. So you can imagine my surprise when I found one sitting there in Smiths. Which, interestingly, was the only shop I saw it in when it appeared and then disappeared last October. I did what any sensible person would do an immediately went to see if it would be worth anything at Amazon Marketplace. Sadly, Amazon have it for ordering as a pre-release (with a date in early Jan 07 which sounds unlikely as it misses the vaguely important Christmas season) so it is ineligible for sale through them. Good job I was desperate to see the series then. I've read his books and now I get to see him in person as he carries out one of his "stupid boy projects". Army of Ghosts was... good. That's it really. It was good. Next week could be better but it will be another massive disappointment - like last year. Imagine the planet Earth being the battle ground for a Dalek vs Cyber war. If you're going to have both races in it you might as well make them enemies. There are millions of Cybermen (fake Cybermen of course as you couldn't leave them in their own universe and use proper ones, oh no) all over the planet and there is nothing the Doctor could conceivably do to stop them. Enter the Daleks - pissed that another race has popped up to challenge their status as the dog's bollocks now they've humbled the Time Lords into oblivion - and we're on. War on Earth and humanity is in the crossfire. The Doctor can't take sides but has to do something to save the apes he's so fond of. Moral dilemma time. Or the two big bads will join forces, bring forth a super weapon and the Doctor will use the McGuffin to wipe out both sets of monsters. That's certainly what the trailer led us to believe. Nothing too complicated - a few battle sequences, a few tears and then the massive cop out ending. Just like last year. And they won't have the balls to kill Rose either. She may appear to be killed but only so she can return next season as a guest star. No one stays dead anymore - I blame Leonard Nimoy and Star Trek III. Oh and I bet anyone who shed tears when Mickey stayed behind in the alternative universe feels stupid right now. Ha ha ha - you invested emotion in a piece of cynical, manipulative television - you fools. |
 
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