Busy week, inluding the inevitable packing up the office leading into the Big Sales Conference Organised By Me taking place while ‘some men’ moved all the stuff to the new premises. Which I have not seen yet and still have no key for. Whoops. Hmm… I am looking forward to getting in there and sorting it all out and resisted the urge to leave a gift-wrapped poo on a certain lazy liar’s desk before I left. She’s never at it so would not have noticed until Christmas even if I had done my dirty protest. I am a grown up so I thought better of this, as proven by my wearing of a suit on Thursday. No tie of course, so last year.

Unexciting things this week:

Trying to find a copy of issue 4 of Phonogram Singles Club in London and failing.

Sanding down painty lumps in the lounge walls very badly.

A lot of cardboard boxes and parcel tape. I swear I dreamt about this too.

Attempting to watch Funny People but deciding that as there were no funny, just lots of people, and its 4.3 hours running length was a bit long that it may be best to not bother. Damn, Apaptow was one of my big entertainment cheeses in his TV era and the films bug me because of this. If I wanted to watch ugly dumb potty-mouthed men bragging about pussy I would still be managing a Pizza Hut delivery unit.

Exciting things this week:

Sia leaked a song from her 2010 album!

The BNP befriended a Muslim-hating Sikh and the usual tools failed to see the irony.

Daily Mail readers love the now-no-longer-racist party. Ironies.

Patrick Wolf done made a video for that good song:

I liked the new Muse single:

The first part of that Doctor Who animation appeared and it was alright if you like that sort of thing.


I am old skool so I find the CGI-ness a bit creepy, and the characters just look stoopid when running. Animated Who can be great though, see the DVD of The Invasion for an example.

The Sarah Jane Adventures finished and it was overall a good old fun load of nonsense. Really deserves a repeat slot in a more prime time timey wimey zone though as it definitely deserves a wider audience. The first story was the weakest but there were some strong ones this year including a mad wedding episode, Floella Benjamim vs ghosts, the absurd but funny loopy northern Mona Lisa rampage and some good gungeing this week.

Roll on series 4 please. CBBC is so much better than it gets credit for (is it Ed & Oucho December yet?).

Item! Hmm… the Twitter hashtags experiment of #slapamailreaderday was fun but I still despair for the future of humanity what with them Northern Koreans with their nu-clear sounds and the Californians terminating human decency and respect. Hashtags came about because I got rather hacked off (I know, don’t look if you don’t want to be annoyed) by puny humans who read a certain paper for people who don’t like to think for themselves about how everyone should be able to marry the person they love and stuff:

I am almost proud of my red arrows. They don’t do no flying tricks in the sky though.

Nice to see that Mail readers approve of slavery. Not all that surprised, just ashamed. I blame this “Stalinist socially-engineered dictatorship” we arte living in. Or is London now an imdependent state and I missed the memo?

Tracey is quite right. Why make a load of fuss and nonsese about civil rights when there are people starving in Africa? I hope Trace eats all her din-dins.

Meanwhile Paul (who appears to live in prison) is “not homophobic in any way but…” then is. And this is meant to surprise me? He thinks same sex marriages are the siliest thing has has ever heard of so I assume he doesn’t get out much. Well he could be staying in for a long time. Oh shame.

Item! Hard Times indeed, Patrick Wolf. The video looks like what a musical episode from Doctor Who in 1972 would look like if they ghad more money to spend. I like it but then I would.

Item! While I remember, here’s episode 9 of The Apprehensive:

Avin’ a bladdy larf, etc, etc

Hurrah, it is Friday again and it’s been a busy week. My first London Book Fair where my feet were ruined by grown-up shoes but I experienced the joy of lumberjack chips in the pub, tons of Christmas Highlights kits for head office buyers to look at, a whole load of printing and a fair amount of doing stuff on Amazon meant it was busy busy busy but it had a great soundtrack: new Patrick Wolf album leaked (an essential purchase for June, lots of mad beats, funny instruments, good storng melodies and peculiar voice bits), the Noisettes album was released (I bought it as it is so much better than their first one and quite disco-y in a good way), some new Jarvis Cocker tracks landed on the internet (that 8/1 blog is rather smashing) plus the pants song from The Apprentice of course.

Oh no, I fogrot to eat my Wake Up Call this morning. This might explain the pants problem. Brilliant cereal box design though. Honest.

I have become slightly obsessed with prematurely cancelled (by Fox of course) early 00′s comedy Undeclared.

Maybe because, like The Inbetweeners, some of it reminds me of awful people I have known. The terrible music fight in the linked clip especially so as I once shared a house with a couple of not-at-all-from-the-hood white blokes who only played hip hop and only played it very loudly. Very Westwood (Tim not Vivienne).

Obligatory comics recommendations (mutants spesh):

I still love X-Factor even if the art team changes every other issue. No it is not the talent show off the telly. It is quite camp sometimes though with the fabulous bitchy one.

Meanwhile, in Uncanny X-Men where artist Greg Land is still copying images from catalogues and porn:

Uh-oh! Obligatory continuity-messing sort-of-resurrection alert!

Also: gays and stuff… at least good old Northstar is a stroppy one. Who could blame him after he was killed by a brainwashed Wolverine then resurrected as a zombie by evil ninjas only to be somehow restored to normality in an ending I must have forgotten about?

So… what’s going on with Dollhouse? Well it improved bloody loads after a few episodes which wasn’t hard as it started very badly. But now it might be dead or might be alive. Well it is on Fox. Damn rumours…

What’s that? The Daily Express reckon Gillian Anderson from The X-Files is going to be playing The Rani in Doctor Who? Hmmm…

In other news, the new Big Finish play (story 1 of 3 of the McCoy mini season) was damn fine, I wore shorts outside today (which is not right), bought a part for my oven in a shop for men (an electrical shop) successfully and made my first vegeburger mix burgers. They were yummy.

Hmmm… the Michelle Ryan cat has been let out of the bag!

I wonder if Daily Mail readers are looking forward to it?

I love how they give green arrow points to moaning minnies.

Hmmm… Patrick Wolf’s forthcoming album has a little sampler mix thing on the interwebs…

And, shamelessly ‘inspired’ by Clive’s blog mentioning it, here is this week’s OK Magazine:

That’s not a real magazine cover, is it? It’s from the makers of The World’s Greatest Newspaper so maybe it is.

And prey tell, The Tit-Witch Formerly Known As Jordan, who would do the raping of the rapists? I am sure they could turn it into a celebrity-based reality show. Taking Price’s logic further this means that burglars should be burgled back, drunk drivers should be made to drink even more and drive even worse, and lairy geezers should recieve a kicking.

So it’s tit for tat? Oh my aching sides I am so humorous.

Also: Has Price joined Obama’s gym? How else would she know his level of fitness? I am confused.

What a busy week! I had a (working) day out yesterday and a 10 hour madness shift back in the office today to catch up. Nothing of today would be blogworthy, even receiving my complimentary Jade Goody book. Tuesday was more fun, what with stupidly fiddling with my iPod before going into the bank and letting my cheque blow away, leaving me to chase it around a small park just off the main road. I doubt 1980s Village has seen such fun since that timethe dish ran away with the spoon. Loving the £2.50 Lunch though: Crusty bap, large coffee and some kind of cake or pastry. It’s like Ashes To Ashes without the “hilarious” sexism and racism.

The trip to London included lots of bus rides that could have been beaten by walking. I hate the place and am glad I’m mostly rid of it. I wouldn’t dare complain about one of our delays which was due to a road being cordoned off by police looking at a big red smear in the road. I later found out that a poor cyclist had been knocked down by a lorry and killed. That was my first experience of a death scene and the Daily Mail readers didn’t let that stop them having a typically friendly discussion on the story:

“Do not know details of this terrible accident but all i know is that most cyclists ignore all road signals and lights.”- Mike, London,England, 25/9/2008 10:33

“A tragedy for sure…but what’s the betting she was one of the majority of London cyclists who blithely run every red light they come across?”- Spencer, London, UK, 25/9/2008 12:11

What nice people!

Soundtrack tip for bad commuting on the tube: Antony and the Johnsons. Listening to Hitler In My Heart, The Atrocities or Bird Guhrl while getting sardined is strangely refreshing. Any other trannsexually songs with lots of religious iconography will also do the job.

I think whoever made the new Morningwood video has been to see a certain musical with puppets. Oh yes.

I had some very nice but very tiny yummy finger food last night at a certain famous Indian chef’s book launch. Is it rude to take three mini paneer on tiny toasts at once from the waiter? I did a bit of schmoozing and had a few cocktails but was tired after sales meetings at Tate Britain, Waterstones, WHSmith HQ (mostly gays), Foyles, another Waterstones and, oh you get the idea. We also went past my old old bookshop which is also being regenerated into a bookshop with a big W on it.

I sneaked off to Forbidden Planet and bought the newly-released first hardback of Gotham Central, the latest issue of Manhunter and volume one of Terry Moore’s Echo. All very good I am sure. Also nipped into HMV for the Saint Etienne singles and Zavvi where Juno was on the 3 for £20 DVD deal. Next was Fopp where I found myself staring at Patrick Wolf browsing DVDs with his friend. Weirdly enough, I had been after his first album but instead found the Magic Position for a fiver. As I am actually quite shy I left him alone.

He is very tall and had funny trousers.

I am so upset about Ruth Kelly pissing off*.

Tomorrow is the grand re-opening of my old shop as it has now fully regenerated. I wonder if it now owns a flute and occasionally wears a pointy hat?

It’s not new but I love the video for Bryn Christopher’s Smilin’. So I do.

*yeah, right, but I like The Daily Mash’s view of the whole saga.

Jesus is in my I-Pod. After it died on Good Friday (no battery power even though there should be, no reaction when I plug it into the USB thingy, etc etc) I gave in and ordered a shiny new Nano even though apples and pears are evil with their shoddy electronic items… then on Easter Sunday the bloody thing comes back to life and proceeds to accept the charger thing. Damn you (but not in a blasphemous way if that is possible) Jesus-Pod!, I am changing my name to Danny Two Pods.

In television reviews news… Damn you, Life On Mars! It all went a bit Torchwood for me. Sam was in a coma in the present, dreaming of living in a 1970s cop show and killed himself when he couldn’t cope with the rubbishness of modern life. Or he was really in the past all along with a very active imagination that gave him heaps of knowledge about future pop culture, policing procedure and other stuff. Or he was Captain Jack. Does that mean Annie is Gwen? And Gene is that creepy man with the clock fetish?

Or does Bowie have the secret? Or is it all a metaphor for choclit?
Coming soon: The unnecessary threequel: Pump Up The Volume?

Patrick Wolf has been doing loads of telly when he’s not getting his hair done. Here he is with that Kenickie woman and the only Welsh man who is not in Torchwood or Doctor Who…

Yes it’s a load of clips but there’s a theremin!

I had a meeting (while manning the tills, never a good idea) with a real-life Johnson type. Spooky… He didn’t seem to understand my problems with the level of expected service from his company and I think he would have been more in his element with some fuck-off spreadsheets and a cappuccino rather than a belligerent bookshop manager repeating that he is not happy over and over again. I almost called him Johnson at least once. He is not really called Johnson of course. That would have been embarrassing.

(by the way, Johnson is back! Peep Show episode 2 is coming in a week and a few days. Also featuring Big Suze)

I think there are a lot of Doctor Who fans buying clothes from ASOS at the moment…

That jacket with those shoes? Hmmm…

(and now, shamelessly cut and pasted from That other bLog I also write, here’s some more stuff)

Another day, another Peep Show peek. Or even peep. Anyway…

The lovely woman who does the publicity for Peep Show sent me that rather fetching promotional photograph. Thanks, publicity woman!

She also happened to mention that there are some new trailers such as this one which is for mad people who haven’t watched the show before:

Then there are a couple of short clippy trailers that you have probably seen on your television if you watch anything else on Channel 4 but I have no idea what you would be watching there…

It’s almost as exciting as Doctor Who. Almost.

I love a Bank Holiday and I’m not even a bank… except when the poxy phone rings at 8:30 and it’s a ‘number witheld’ who then phones back five minutes later when you’ve got back into bed and it turns out they are waffling on about selling you windows because your husband didn’t tell them to piss orf the last time they called you. Bah. They then came round to look at the existing windows and one of them did a wee all over the toilet, which I discovered after they had left. No chance of Cannot Piss Properly windows company getting any of my hard-earned cash now, filthy buggers.

We went to That Pub Quiz last night where I voted (in my head only) a man named Rupert as Twat Of The Quiz. As if being named Rupert was not reason alone, he was with an unfeasibly large quiz entourage of mostly braying women who flattered his ego by laughing at his ‘hilarious’ ways which included singing along to hair rock anthems and talking very very loudly. Bonus points for all of them being filthy bastard smokers (I cannot wait until July when the sensible law begins) and we beat them at quizzing anyway. Pah! Third out of thirteen teams, winning chocolates that we don’t even need as we are swimming in chocolate. Not literally, although if they provided armbands I could cope with that.

I saw this and got scared:

Patrick Wolf! What were you thinking????

I am so glad that Life On Mars is finishing next week. I loved that show but it’s becoming Torchwood In Vests with smoking fags replacing insinuations of gaylien bum fun. And that cannot be good, can it?

Future telly potential bags of fun: David Cross (you know, Tobias from Arrested Development and other things) has been cast in a new pilot for CBS called I’m In Hell, described as follows: ‘highflying Wall Street player (Jason Biggs) who dies in a BlackBerry-related car crash and is reassigned to Hell on Earth where he must figure out a way to get by without his career and all the trappings of his former existence. Cross is set as Scott, a sharply dressed man who serves as an emissary from hell, while Erica Christensen will play a nanny, a potential love interest for Biggs’ character who also is in the Hell on Earth program.’ This could be very good or very shit. I don’t know as I cannot see the future. Yet.

Who wants to go see Menopause: The Musical at The Shaw Theatre with me? It stars Su Pollard from Hi-De-Hi and Sinitta’s Mum Miquel Brown! It’s where we saw David Mitchell last Sunday (not performing in that, it was another show) and all the staff had to wear Menopause t-shirts. They looked so pleased by this development. Anybody? No?

Phew!

I have just been informed that I may be spending several hours of my life watching Sue Perkins grilling Brian Blessed sometime at the end of this month. Damn my husband and his obsession for freebie BBC Radio tickets. But Brian Blessed? I have a strange admiration for the man and he was, of course, in Doctor Who that time…

Peri!!!! Nooooooooo! etc.

Easter Egg Update: We have eaten half of the massive egg. Other half and six Creme Eggs to follow. Very soon…

I could blog about David Beckham stealing Elton John’s ‘hair.’ But I won’t.

I could blog about the horrible popular chemist’s own brand cough medicine that tastes like liquorice from hell. But I won’t.

I could blog about that woman who tried to sue her landlord because she got drunk, climbed through a wondow and danced on a skylight that she then fell through. But I won’t.

I could blog about my quest for my very own nemesis. But I won’t.

I could blog about that Weakest Link that’s on tonight featuring the tin dog coming last and my shiny head in the background. But I won’t.

I could blog about the cheapo clothing company who sacked my friend for blogging about them and their unfortunate bad press due to 45 million UK and USA customers creditcard details being stolen by hackers. But I won’t.

I will blog about an excellent book that I have chosen as my Manager’s Book Of The Week even though that term does not really even exist. How can any sane person resist this marvellous item?

It’s both entertaining and educational. Learn how to stuff your beloved pets (once deceased of course) and make them more useful than just a regular rotting carcass. Wind chimes, coffee tables, jewellery, etc. Marvellous! A bargain at £4.99!

I will also blog about clicking here to get a free mp3 of Get Lost by Patrick Wolf which is pretty damn special.

I will blog about that new trailer for my favourite programme which appeared on the BBCi yesterday and then turned up on YooHooTube. New clips! Jess! Daleks! Gatiss! Pigs in space! Sir Derek! How bloody fantastic!

I need more cough mixture after watching that (for the fifth time).

What is The Magic Position? I would ask someone like Paul Daniels but I am frightened by what I may learn. It’s also the name of the third album by Patrick Wolf and it came out yesterday. It’s very hard to define as he’s a bit all over the place but in a very good way. If I had to be a lazy bastard writer I would say a male Tori Amos / Kate Bush with fiddling instead of pianoing but there’s also loads of synths and guitars too. Patrick Wolf is one of those annoyingly clever people who does everything himself and has produced his most coherent album yet. I found it a bit hard to get into his previous work and condensed them into one 80 minute playlist to make them more palatable to my listening mood but this CD has nothing I want to delete. It features brooding, piano and fireworks on Bluebells (a previous single), a manic song about love with a fair bit of strings and handclaps on The Magic Position and a similarly themed song with loads of what sound like retro computer game noises and percussion on Get Lost. In a way it’s mostly an album about falling in love… but then the love went wrong. Bah.

This isn’t the real cover but I prefer it to the real one as it might put people off with its wackiness. Wacky is rarely a good thing.

It’s all the bits and pieces for nerds that wouldn’t fit anywhere else…

In keeping with the geek rule of every comic-related film, Heroes (which is not actually a film but nevermind) has got a certain icon with impossible hair doing the obligatory cameo soon.

Did somebody mention Gwen Stacy?

Patrick Wolf is in The Guardian! He’s not got the right elements to become the next Mika, unfortunately, but it’s almost time for The Magic Position. Hopefully not the same one Paul Daniels does with The Lovely Debbie McGee though.

I watched the long-awaited new episode of Lost yesterday. It were alright but it’s as slow as Jade Goody on Countdown. More answers, more questions, more shouting at my computer. Much better and with no hype at all was Bones where Booth shoots an ice cream van clown and has to go see an English psychiatrist who talks about latin words and makes lots of tea and just happens to be played by that Stephen Fry. Meanwhile, the science geeks investigate the dude from Bill and Ted who wasn’t Keanu Reeves.

Either I’m getting good or 24 is getting lazy. I guessed the ‘shocking’ twists this week straight away. I am loving George from Six Feet Under as Jack’s old yet very tall father and Doctor Romano from ER as Jack’s shorter and balder brother.

Geek Monthly (yes, really) has a nice big interview with Joss Whedon. What more can I say?

Why is Dawn rather oversized? You’ll have to buy the comic. Soon.