Inspired by the rather great Doctor Who episode what was on last night, I decided to take a trip down memory lane. I shouldn’t have bothered…

Yes, I committed the sin of watching the unmentionable…

K-9 And Company was the pilot of a potential Doctor Who spin-off from back in the days (1981) when the show was beginning to get ruined by its new producer (John Nathan Turner) i.e. it all went a bit too gay. In a bad way, unlike its current good gay way. Anyway, the show starred Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith and K-9 as himself , with some other people adding to the acting splinters….

The plot, I hear you say? OK. Well, er… Sarah Jane goes to stay at her Aunt Lavinia (posh old semi-alcoholic husky English woman from a different era) ‘s house which is yer actual gianormous English studio set mansiony thing that everyone lived in in BBC 1980s world. She finally opens a pressie from The Dok-Torr which contains that bloody robot dog. There are many odd cliched characters populating the village, including a yokely gardener, a leather-jacketed young troublemaker, some posh old women who invite Sarah round for tea and make endless phonecalls about bugger all. Sarah’s phone number only has three digits and she does things like call the operator and send a cable to America, whatever that means …

There’s witchcraft afoot! It seems that most of the locals are spending their evenings worshpping something evil called Hecate, and they do this by dressing up in robes and sometimes even wearing big animal masks and wandering round in circles in churchyards chanting the word ‘Hecate’ over and over again while not arousing any suspicions whatsoever…

And so on. It’s rather camp and wooden and, well, shit. Please do not buy the out of print novelisation or the VHS video of it. It has a feem toon by Ian Levine, who is the nearest thing to musical vomit apart from James Blunt. K-9 shoots his laser a lot, badly. Sarah Jane takes a hell of a lot of phonecalls. K-9 tries to sing a Christmas song. Sarah’s nephew (or summink) Brendan is played by the worst teenage actor I have ever seen and I was upset when he was rescued before the witchy folk had time to sacrifice him to Hecate.

I need a little nap now to recover.

Episode 100 of Alias is very Whedonesque… and great!

It’s written by ‘Buffy’/'Angel’ writer Drew Goddard…
Its producers include that same Mr Goddard and ‘Angel’ writer/producer Jeffrey Bell…
Its title sequence stars include Amy Acker (Fred / Illyria) from Angel…
and Rachel Nicholls from ‘Serenity’ big cheese Tim Minear’s short-lived show ‘The Inside’ …
with a special guest star appearance from Gina Torres (Glory from ‘Angel’ and Zoe from ‘Firefly’/'Serenity’) …

and it had that mashup of Rapture/Riders On The Storm on the soundtrack. Fantastic!

In episode 100 of that silly spy show, Sydney returns from her maternity leave (with obligatory cute baby of course) because Amy Acker’s evil villain character Peyton breaks that even eviller Anna (Gina Torres) out of a strange jail to kidnap Will (Bradley Cooper, from that short-lived ‘Kitchen Confidential’) in a complicated kerfuffle involving disguises, running, shooting and globe-trotting, as usual. Add in some Men In Black babysitters and all sorts of betrayals and shit, it makes for a rather good hour of telly. Only a few more episodes til the very last one now.

got some screengrabs from a rather good fansite:

“Hang on, weren’t you that God-like creature that the evil Cordelia gave birth to after sleeping with Angel’s teenage son who should have been a baby but he grew up in a dimension where time went faster but he never should have existed in the first place as vampires can’t have babies, but who was in fact its own parent as it had to find a way into this dimension by doing that weird shit but then it was revealed that Cordelia wasn’t really herself anyway as your evil had sort of taken over her body and …?”

“No, I think you’ll find that the writers realised how lame all that was so most of season four of Angel never really happened as the characters sort of had their memories wiped, at least until some of them remembered and then nothing made any sense at all…”

“Aww… a bay-bee! Awwwwwwww…”

“In the focus groups, the most popular scene is the one in which my character reveals to Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou the theory that Christ fathered a child,” McKellen says, nervous he might have already said too much. “Actually, I don’t think anybody will say of the film, as they might with Lord of the Rings, “Oh seeing it will spoil my re-reading of it.” I don’t think many people will re-read The Da Vinci Code.”

That’s why I love Sir Ian McKellen. Not just coz he is Magneto.

From a big interview in The Observer today.

After being arrested something like three times in the last two weeks because of his tiresome drug addiction, isn’t it about time someone locked Pete Doherty up? Or maybe he’ll just kill himself with a crack/smack combi and then we’ll all get rid of his mongy junkie face from our newspapers and magazines.

Die, Doherty, Die!

Well, another episode of that silly programme has been shown on telly… and it’s still rather good, in a geeky kind of way. Episode three was one for the old folks like me. It showed that a robot dog may look ridiculous but they can be very useful. It also showed that it’s hard to maintain relationships with people who have a significantly shorter lifespan than yourself…

What was good about it: Anthony Head hamming it up, Mickey dog-sitting in the car, the fat kid saving the school, some soppy girly bits with hugs, Tennant wearing his glasses and looking all sexy…

What was bad about it: A few of the effects shots were a bit ropey (the ones with the moon), the whole dinnerladies and oil thing (very silly), the inevitability of K-9 Version 4.0 …

I think we could have done with a cameo by Thelma Barlow as a dinnerlady.

Play some more games and watch some stuff on the Episode Three page.

Visit the official website for Deffry Vale High School.

I have been busy planning all of my life-altering moments so have not had time to get annoyed at stupid people apart from all the usual suspects. So well done all 4by4 drivers, people who are thinking about voting BNP, American Conservative nutjob ladies, Dan Brown fans, people who stand on the wrong side of the tube escalators, rude idiots on mobile phones, ASBO kids and people called Chantelle. You’ve got away with it for another day!

I like blogs and I like this one, called ‘My Citrus Sarcophagus’ for reasons that may be made clear if you visit it. He appears to be one of them gays though so steer clear if the thought of two men having a kiss and cuddle curdles the mile in your nice cup of tea.

Citrus Sarcophagus’ Orange Anubis says: “I especially hope to discuss GREAT music, TERRIBLE music and PREPOSTEROUS music. Every attempt will be made to keep this blog clear of all the stuff in between.” I can’t wait. Just don’t discuss George Michaels and we’ll get along fine.

I love Outpost Gallifrey way too much. You don’t need any other site for yer timelord addiction.

This DVD isn’t out for bloody ages unless you also travel in time.

June 5th, in case you want to set your co-ordinates.

Today I have been sleepy, dopey, grumpy and sneezy. I was probably several other dwarves too but I can’t remember all their names and am too lazy to google them…

I am still freaked out after having an unintentional nap when I got home from work. Waking up in bed (well, on it anyway) at the PM version time of my usual AM alarm call was most confusing and it took me a while to work out why I was there and why it was very light outside. I still feel like I’m on drugs but all ‘ve had is a nice cup of tea and some eye drops. That hardly makes me Whitney Houston…

Should I start writing a self-help book for gays? I appear to be some kind of icon for not following the rubbish cliche gay lifestyle that yer gays don’t actually want to follow anyway but feel obliged to, as realised again when discussing stuff with a fellow gay I had just met today. Would I be that arrogant to say ‘icon’ or ‘role model’? Of course not, but if that German lady can make a fortune selling Cosmic Ordering books (sold quite a few at work today, all to scary women you wouldn’t accept sweets off) I should strike while the iron is hot! Speaking of ironing, I don’t want to go do mine. Damn you, housework!

Hot tune of the day is Elbow’s rather bizarre version of that booty-shakin’ R&B song ’1 Thing.’ Go to The Cowmonkey to download it for nowt.

and buy eiher or all of their three great albums while you’re at it.

The wedding DJ is pretty much booked. Yes, I am going on about weddings again but please indulge me…

DJ booking bloke asked me if there were any songs I wanted them to definitely play, outside of the usual expected stuff you get at these sorts of things. I had no idea and need some pondering time or help. He also asked what things I did not want played, which was a bit easier…


George Michaels and Robbie Walliams: you’re barred!

So what kind of stuff is standard for these shindigs?
The Birdie Song? Come On Eileen? Somefink by ABBA?

Can I have an evening of experimental jazz? Or just have a compilation of The Mighty Boosh songs on a giant screen? Can I?