Bloody hell, a quiet night in on my lonesome. I have already opened the Hobnobs (chocolateless ones, bah) and had too much cauliflower so now it’s time for the blog rambles about things which are good in the world of geek this week:

Lost is still on the telly and it is shit hot right now. What a vile expression but all the story threads are coming together very nicely indeed. Can’t really say much without spoiling it but this week included characters doing the following things: finally kind of having that picnic, exploding, hanging around outside a school. This is a good thing really and if you’ve given up on it I suggest getting caught up.

Treme is new to the telly that is acquired through nefarious means i.e. it’s just started in America. It’s The Jazz Wire (post-hurricane) and the first episode showed a lot of potential. It has some Wire-y people, John Goodman and the marvellous Melissa Leo who was in Homicide: Life on the Street (which we’ve just started watching on DVD. Again for me but first time for Jamie) so you know it’s got the pedigree, chum.

Also on the telly (both UK and other): Nurse Jackie series 2 is coming along nicely and is very my kind of thing. Not too dark so far this year but then I might be the wrong person to ask as I like a mix of comedy and torment for some reason. United States of Tara is also in its second sesason and also still strong. I’m still watching Heroes on the BBC but am always a few episodes behind as there’s not enough time in the day what with all the DVDs (The Horns of Nimon was time I will never get back) but I’m enjoying it as much as I did when it was a new show. Also watching Pineapple Dance Studios as it’s a marvellously dry look at deluded egomaniacs although last week’s episode where David Van Dayesque odd ‘not gay’ wannabe popstar Andrew Stone met David Van Day (also ‘not gay’) got me all confused. I believe split screen may have been used. Oh and Emmerdale. Yes, really. It knows the science behind making a soap opera that works which is nice.

With the music, I was pleased to see The Melting Ice Caps having another free single on his website and as usual it is bloody lovely. If you like your indie but not a racket one man band sensitive man with a sense of humour music you’ll love it. And so you should. Other musical things that were real money purchases have been the deluxe edition of Here Lies Love (I’ll talk about that one another time) , the album from  Codeine Velvet Club (who I blogged about last week) and some old things made new:

The S’Express Original Soundtrack album is one of my endless “I had it on tape” albums. Still got the original vinyl singles of course but now the album is back on CD with a few extra mixes, some nice photos in the booklet and it sounds great.


Ah, Lonnie Gordon! That album that allegedly never came out (I had most of the 12″s) is so very catchy, I just had to buy it. My first Stock Aitken Waterman album on CD ever in fact, although I did have Mel & Kim on cassette at the time of release. Talking of that, the b-side misx on the 12″ of Respectable is impossible to find on CD or mp3 although similarly named but mostly instrumental versions exist. Damnit.

Love it. Want it on my bloody iPod as I cannot carry my 1993 massive stereo around.

A couple of videos relating to essential new music:

Sia’s new album is coming soon!

So is The Pipettes new album. The single is out and should have arrived in the post but so far no show.

It’s Sunday and I am trapped in my room while Jamie does more work for work and my dad does more tiling for our bathroom. Occasional banging and drilling (ooer) means my reading of Under The Skin (halfway throught now and it is a proper book and everything) gets distracting so I shift to catching up on the Phonogram comics. Yes real comics not collected editions. Gotta support the indies and so I bought them on my London trip on Friday where I went for drinks and lots of chips & wedges with old bookshoppy people and micro-celeb spotted Denise Black from Queer As Folk in the pub and Rikki Beadle-Blair from all sorts of theatre and TV stuff in the newsagent next to Fopp where I bought a Snickers. It’s a showbiz whirl, so it is.

Stuff of interest this week:

The Saint Etienne deluxe reissues begin and one of them is more of an ‘issue’ as Continental has never been out in the UK. My pirated copy will soon go in the bin when I get the real thing. It’s got some of my favourite tracks on it plus some that have never even been released anywhere ever. Also out at the same time: Foxbase Alpha. That’ll be my third purchase of it (I think the cassette lives in a dusty drawer) but I have deluxe fever and it has new songs called Chase HQ, Sally Space, The Reckoning, Sweet Pea and Winter In America.

If I was drunk I would have bought this in London:

Christopher Eccleston miniature Hero? With wallet, staff and pigeon? Who could resist?

Well me actually. Although I loved this week’s BBC2 episode.

Another week, another last week’s The Apprehensive episode.

Pants. Etc.

Other thrilling events this week include the moment I realised that eating a yogurt whose lid had puffed up and tasted a bit funny was probably not a good idea, the moment where I realised that all the bottles of Kopparberg pear cider in my cupboard were of the previously-unheard-of non-alcoholic variety (why? why? why?) and the moment that this wek’s episode of Dollhouse was rather good and surprising again. Which means of course that it will be scrapped as I am a sucker for those prematurely-cancelled telly shows.

Good news! Talk About The Passion is back after its hiatus.

It’s regenerated but does not play the spoons and is incapable of gurning… and not talking of that at all, did you see Sylvester McCoy playing a has-been kids’ TV star on Doctors (with peculiar Scottish/Generic Northern accent and magical traffic lollipop) and a has-been ventriloquist (with peculiar Scottish/Cockney accent and homosexual dummy co-star) on Casualty?

Good times for television but it’s all overlapping in my brain: Monica from Heroes turned up in Pushing Daisies in the same week that Heroes featured The Wire’s Marlo Stanfield and Bubbles as some of the new villains. We’re only up to season two of The Wire (we have a bit of a backlog) and have just seen Holly from The Office discover thirteen dead bodies at the docks. What’s next? Doctor Suresh as a pie-loving gangsta with a paper fetish? Well it wouldn’t be that far-fetched considering his current plot, would it? I am loving Heroes at the moment even though it is completely insane. I suppose that’s the extreme comicbookness of the whole thing, what with it being like one of those old crazy X-Men series crossover stories. I forsee a cull as there are maybe a few too many characters at the moment (well it is Hollyoaks with powers) but it’s fun and fun is what we need. Pushing Daisies is okay but something seems a bit off. The current episode showed improvement but it always makes me want pie, damnit. Never a taxidermist-approved dog though, although that would fit in well over at True Blood where it’s as comicbook as Heroes. There seems to be a rule of one murder and one bum shot per episode but it’s another of those very silly but entertaining shows that I recommend to the geeks.

Meanwhile, here are the rest of my non-essential Christmas List DVDs:

Inexplicably popular school inspector memoir peddler Gervais Phinn does Macaulay Culkin?

Scooby-Doo meets Batman? Hmm… now that I think about it, I wouldn’t mind this one.

Thriller? Only if he drove over the cliff. How tiresome.

Just an unfunny c**t.

Oh those poor parents. How much more milk can Disney get out of those overly-styled ‘high schoolers’? Still, at least it “works with any DVD player”!

I have other better things on my real Christmas list. Well I did, but I kept buying them.

Memo to self:

Do not Facebook-stalk the cast of The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Bloody hell, I’m busy. My ‘half day’ became a whole day and I had to force myself to log off the work machine by leaving a trail of cake crumbs from thre kitchen to the home office. No I don’t work at The Home Office. Anyway… I could waffle about the strange bus people like the randomly-timed-grins man who had a funny walk and a Daily Express or the disappearance of the teenager I named Chinese Yet Tall (one point for comedy reference identification) who used to get on every morning, or the unhilarity of the bus breaking down after only five minutes of the journey, leaving the road blocked and people getting all uppity but that would be boring. I could mention the nice old Polish lady from the 1980s Bakery in the village who gave me the advice of putting a cactus on my desk to absorb the electricity from my computer screen after I mentioned eye strain headaches. But I won’t. I could mention by brother having his 40th birthday and my sister finally leaving home to be a proper student (hurrah for student halls, she’ll love it) but I’ll just do more of the usual expected stuff, with comics to follow tomorrow…

Thom sent me a video clip that startled, amused and disturbed me in equal measures. From the ‘hit’ BBC show Duet Impossible where live modern singers ‘duet’ with dead old ones comes this…

Which disobeys all the rules of the show. I love the arrogance and rubbishness of it, plus the expected banter and wonky hat.

Cover any small person’s eyes, it’s a man in a dress!

David Walliams has a children’s book out and people in the know whose opinions I value say it is a rather nice book. With Quentin Blake illustrations and everything! It’s about a boy who wears a dress and is called, unsurprisingly, The Boy In The Dress. I thought the Daily Mail would love it, especially when David posed in some dresses to ram it down their throats. Or something:

I find his behaviour and these pictures rather sickening to say the least. Is he supposed to be funny ???
- Jan, North Oxfordshire, 8/10/2008 13:22

Ugh. These pictures give me the creeps. And what are children going to think if they see them?
- Sarah, Belgium, 8/10/2008 9:40

It just looks so weird……
- Jacqui Weems, Southampton, 8/10/2008 11:34

A childrens book – wrong, wrong, wrong!
- Lynne, Durham, 8/10/2008 12:33

What if children see pictures of David in a dress? It’s promoting a fucking book for children, you imbecile! Yes, a children’s book! For children!

I had a great spam email the other day from a nice African chap. There are so many of them who have thought of convoluted schemes to give complete strangers money, I am like well impressed. The way he ended the email put him in a class of his own though:

Note I am a man of 49 years old, i’ll not lie to you, please do not do the same to me.

Yours truly,
Mr. Eric Igwe

He’s 49? Why didn’t he say that at the start?

Where’s all my money gone?

I do so enjoy Heroes, it’s like X-Men comics for the masses, you never know what bit is going to be homaged next. I liked talking about it on Facebook and I am a lazy git so here are some thoughts:

Dan liked the Veronica Mars moment in Heroes Unmasked. But they don’t wear masks! and Super Suresh is just wrong. All baby-oil Spider-Man wrong! 10:16pm

Dan Hollingsworth at 10:31pm
I liked that there were several moments where I thought that the writers had spent their strike time watching Hollyoaks.

Dan Hollingsworth at 10:54pm
It was good, in a Hollyoaks-with-powers way! Today’s Hollyoaks was actually more ridiculous than Heroes, wth the bending of time and space, spider-sense and super strength on show.

Dan Hollingsworth at 10:54pm
Why is that awful woman with the killer tears suddenly
A) Not a baddie
B) Glamorous
C) Very American
D) Sampling Super Mohinder’s special black todger tears?

Dan
I love Sylar’s special blend of sinister, eyebrow acting, vests and camp. But why do all future timeline version characters have scarred faces?

Tabloid crap time (again):

At least nobody would be able to tell by looking at her.

Oh dear. It looks like the Grinning Eastenders Gay Man had a bit of a canoodle on Arfur’s bench and upset some people. I wonder if all the violence, murderings, paedophile grooming (that phrase always makes me think of My Little Pony for some reason) and abuse of the English language also got them upset?

Complaints pour into BBC after EastEnders screens gay kiss before the watershed
By Daily Mail Reporter

The BBC has been flooded with complaints after screening a gay kiss on EastEnders before the 9pm watershed.

I hope Pat’s seven year old son who thinks he is gay because he kisses his dad gets taken into care if Pat cannot adequately explain the absurdity of the situation. I don’t think she has done very well so far. Not to mention letting a seven year old watch Eastenders. Surely something more appropriate like the lastest Saw film would have not had any gaiety?

The BBC statement read: ‘We approach our portrayal of homosexual relationships in the same way as we do heterosexual relationships. We believe that the general tone and content of EastEnders is now widely recognised. Parents can make an informed decision as to whether they want their children to watch.’

Whatever next? Not tattooing gay people’s bottoms with ‘Sodomy Kills’?

Mail readers mostly thought Pat was insane (phew) but there were a few of the usual suspects whose brains malfuctioned enough to prompt them to comment:

What’s the point of having a watershed then? Either move Eastenders to 9pm or don’t show scenes like these. I have a 12 year-old and I don’t let him watch Eastenders for this very reason.
- sarah, dorset, 9/10/2008 14:47

I just do not want to see this ever. Forget all the PC crap about it being ‘legal’. If the gay community is 10% of the whole, how come they are constanttly shoving it into our faces? Pensioners don’t and they are a much larger part of our community.
- Bob Baillie, Southampton, 9/10/2008 14:54

There are no pensioners on Eastenders of course, and what is this obsession with “shoving it in our faces”? If it’s not that it’ll be “ramming it down our throats.” Are they trying to tell us something? Actually, I’d rather not know.

It’s the weekend. Thank generic chocolate honeycomb. Or not, it rots yer teef.

Week 3 of Publishers’ Rep’s Office Manager was very nice. I visited a branch of my old bookshop chain and chipped in with the selling points on stuff we wanted the depressed buyer to buy. Depressed buyers don’t like buying stuff though. I resisted tidying the shop and nobody said “do you work here?” to me, which was nice. And I was wearing a suit so I felt immortal. Or was it immoral?

While oot and aboot I bumped into Superfriend in Forbidden Planet and he produced a care package of cake from the sorely-missed local bookshop area sandwich shop. God I miss that cake, the new local sandwich shop is a health catastrophe waiting to happen so I mostly make my own or buy strage baked ogods from Spar. Arrr…

My other adventures included going to my first meeting, in my suit, with a publishing company. Sitting staring at different book jacket designs and picking them apart was nice, as was knowing what I was talking about and dealing with grownups. They were v v posh as the place was in Fancy Fancy Chelsea. There’s a chav exclusion zone around the place, apparently.

I wish there was one on my local bus route as it is infested by Stella-drinking can-chucking morons who love to listen to loud cacoponies of shite with their “bitches.” The men are bitches too, I am not a seximsist. Today’s bus stop characters included Grinning Pissed Smoking Rollups Man, Scary Feist Old Lady and Stroppy screamy Children Woman. I love them all.

New issue of Buffy Season Eight is out.

As is new issue of Captain Britain & MI13. Both are smashing good fun.

The new Torchwood season/story’s name has been revealed. I could tell you…

… but here’s a plastic Captain Spike From Buffy John instead.*

I am excited about this:

The True Blood pilot has been slightly tweaked and here is a new trailer.

Phil from Worapalava is quite right about Solange. But how do I say her name? MP3 here. I like it.

Heroes is almost back in a new trailer …

… and it’s going to be shown on BBC2 close to the US transmission dates. How considerate!

In other news, Ben and Darrell have been exploring an arse in their new Roadshow Week video extravagamza at TATP. So go there. Please.

*It’s called Children Of Earth.

While I have been busy shifting mountains of spreadhseets, mountains of booky tat, mountains of paperwork and mountains of hot caffeinated drinks, and realising that the very over-talkative receptionist at work does not register when the limit for chit chat has been reached, I have neglected to blog about nice new things. So…

Item!
Missing Veronica Mars?

Plastic Electroshock Veronica is coming! Soon!

Item! I have discovered that I quite like The Cliks.


Oh Yeah.

Do you?

Item! Joss Whedon has announced that the Dr Horrible DVD is on its way and it looks set to be fantastic. Of course it does.

Click the article for “It’s actually shaped like a little hammer” and other scary moments.

Item! The Hollyoaks Hunks 2009 Calendar has obviously spent more money on photoshopping than it costs to make a whole Hollyoaks omnibus.

2010: The totally CGI Calendar?

Item! In a spooky coincidence ie. not at all contrived, this month’s Dok-Torr DVD is this:

and the Big Finish CD is this:

Both are rather good examples of what they are. So buy them or be forced to listen to the looped “sacred fire sacred flame…” chant for an hour.

Item! Bad taste reached a new low in Gameshow Land:

Dale Winton’s Hole In The Wall? Does George Michaels know about this? I feel ill.

New week, same old ‘news’…

Migrants and immigrants get mixed up, Diana steals the red Madeleine typeface as Burrell gets grilled (ouch!), the Free Shit Caravan returns and Madeleine gets a ‘now’ as someone has done something in the ongoing investigation that is booked for Express covers until the end of the century. Zzzz… I would read the ‘homes scandal’ story but as per usual someone forgot to make the Express website contain any actual news (and it’s not in other news sources):

Now even Alanis would think that’s ironic.

The oh-so-mysterious Hercules & Love Affair are another one of my Maybe Next Big Thing things. As they are mysterious I can’t tell you anything about them, no photos to post, no videos, no nuffink. But I do have an mp3 of Blind which only bloody well features Antony Hegarty (but not his Jonhnson(s)) and is a sublime load of modern disco with That Bloody Voice. If you like that, and you really should, here are some remix mp3s courtesy of that Slutty Fringe blog. Ah go on, one of them is from Frankie Knuckles.

Heroes action figures are coming! Oh yes! Let’s have a look…

Oh. Bugger. Maybe I’m being too cruel.

In celebrity news, Digital Spy has revealed a shocking truth about rapper Dizzee Rascal who is neither dizzy (unless you spin him around like a Dead Or Alive song) or particularly rascally. He loves Alex James From Blur’s cheese. ZOMG!

The overrated hippity-hoppity man said: “Yeah, big up him, he gave me some cheese, yeah. He sent me some cheese to check, nuff respect to that… Big up to that, but boy oh boy, it was hard! The best cheese I’ve ever tasted is Laughing Cow innit, what’s that? BabyBel. You know that! It does the job you get me, it does the job!” Oh dear. At least he didn’t think Dairlyea slices were da wickedest cheese, blud, or something.

Those Heroes season finales are done and dusted. I re-watched s1 on the real teevee last night and s2 on the pretend telly computery thang and was once again astounded at how the main morals of the show keep getting repeated: Guns r bad, m’kay? Politicians are not to be trusted. It’s all about love. Etc. I think there needs to be no more potential apocalyptic futures with bombs, holocausts, viruses, death camps, powers amnesties and anything else lifted from 1980s X-Men comics. And back to the shootings, when were any X-Men ever beaten by a bullet to the guts instead of some fancy super-powered attack? ‘Bang’ beats ‘Bamf’? I think nearly every character has been shot now, and some of them even killed. Sort of. But like in all good (or bad, depending on your viewpoint) comics, death is rarely permanent. Still not loving Saint Joan but Zappy Veronica Mars is improving. All she needs now is a back-up dog.

I really must get these Crap Christmas Presents ideas finished so here are some more:

While Kiefer is off in jail for doing naughty things in the real world (whatever that is) you can have your very own Jack Bauer in your pocket. Impress the chicks with the annoyed cries of “damnit!” that apper to come from your crotch. Oh yes. What else does Jack say all the time apart from the actual time? Maybe it’s just a complicated shouty speaking clock.

Girl Power! While the Spice revival continues, with absolutely no redeeming features whatsoever, you can treat someone who has smited you with this lovely deluxe edition of their greatest hits thang. It’s the musical equivalent of mutton dressed as lamb, but with a pink feather boa round the mutton’s neck. Damn all these 90s groups reforming. I blame Girl Power for the Verve being back. And Shed Seven. Or maybe I should blame greed?

Random Comicbook Geeek Picture Of The Day:

Heh.

It’s Wednesday so that’s almost Thursday and Thursday is when we get to go out. Hurrah.

Poor McCanns. Gradually being phased out of the front page by The Expres, today they only have a small square in the Free Shit banner with not enough rom for The Scary Picture. Bloody real confirmed dead people hogging all the glory (and it’s not even Saint Diana)! Is Paul McCartney going to be the new Diana? Or maybe that’ll be his alleged new lady friend? What’s going on? And since when did not having any proof that a child died on the night they went missing mean that there is a hope that they are alive after all this time? Or is this what is known as cruelly stringing people along for sensationalist newspaper sales potential?

In honour of the bookshop music today, here’s a flashback from before hippity hoppity music got all shooty and sweary… Pass the condiments, it’s Salt ‘N’ Pepa. Oh yes!

“I thought it was about dancin’….” You just have to watch the following clip:

I want to see this show SO bad now!

Those Mighty Boosh people are back on telly next week and here is a trailer:

God, Noel Fielding is such a bellend. But I like the show enough to overlook that.

Heroes is very silly, isn’t it?
Will they ever learn that guns are bad?, m’kay?
When will they quit with the Oirish accents?
Who is Adam?
Why are there too many characters?
When will Hiro and Ando have their Brokeback moment?

I like the comic-y covers for TV Guide though. And a certain ex-Veronica…

I bet her Daddy’s someone we already know. Jeeezuz, it’s like Hollyoaks with superpowers these days.

Oh just make it stop. Please.

‘Where’s Maddie?’ continues today, with the consecutive frontpage running total now at 70-something, and the Scary Picture being used in 6 of the last 7 days. Yes, really. Somebody should be sacked but people like to read shit so nobody cares. Today: Kate is an egg in the hands of the police and Diana was maybe about to announce either an engagement or a pregnancy or something. Maybe. Or maybe not, as nobody is actually Diana so nobody actually knows. And anyway, move on you conspiracy theory nutjobs. Everybody knows it was Lord Lucan wot dun it.

Meanwhile, in the real world, I investigated the ‘NHS Dentists Crisis’ that The Daily Mail were getting their knickers in a twist over. I phoned the dentist, asked for an appointment, and got one for the very next day. Will the shop refund my pliers then? I was all prepared for waiting a year for a check-up, paying £70 for the experience, and then having to remove my gammy old teeth myself at home live on the internet, as we are living in a third world country, according to Mail readers. Damn you, Gordon Brown! Except we’re not and the papers print bullshit. Whatever next? Taking the blame for my fat belly away from me?

Yay! It’s not my fault that I ate an enormous amount of biscuits, pizza and cake yesterday. It’s society’s fault. Here’s a bit of science for you to cry over:

Next week’s episode (but not on BBC 2) is the big one. When two geek shows collide …

Veronica Mars? Heroes? What are the chances of that?

Seeing as we actually did something in the real world yesterday (as well as go to the dentist. What a busy day) I thought I should post some photos. So here they are:

Zoe From Art Skool came round for tea. And pizza. And cake. As our house is near nothing and nobody of any interest this was rather nice.

Can you tell we are comic geeks?

As it was the once-every-18 months occurance where there is somebody else in the house we jumped at the chance of a photo of the two of us looking silly.

Damn, she loved that Dalek a bit too much.