It’s the end (of the year) … but the moment has been prepared for. No, I’m not going to regenerate, honest. Just have a nice quiet night in with the husband. I had a chat with an old friend who I’ve not seen for ages, listened to Dare by The Human League, had some yummy dinner and am going to finish off the year watching that new Battlestar Galactica: Razor DVD with some champagne. Probably.

Here’s last week’s Daily Express Tat that I forgot about. I should New Year Recolution-ise not to go on about their crapness but I probably will.

Their final cover of 2007 showed no sign of newsworthiness:

Meh. Bored now.

Here’s the next part of Music 2007, with the last part coming tomorrow, along with the Meme Review Of The Year. Whooo-hoo!
Presenting numbers 10 to 6:

10. Duke Special: Songs From The Deep Forest

Duke Special was technically 2006 but it got a double-disc reissue so it counts. My rules… I love this beautiful album, and not just because Neil Hannon is on it.

9. Rosin Murphy: Overpowered

Rosisin’s first solo album was a bit ‘difficult’ but this time around it was all so right. The videos are great too, and I am not going to use the word ‘kooky’.

8. Ryan Adams: Easy Tiger

Ryan cheered up and cleaned up this year, releasing only one album and it was a good one. Yay!

7. Rilo Kiley : Under The Blacklight

I never really got into Rilo Kiley until they allegedly went all commercial with this album. It’s bloody good and I won’t use the phrase ‘Fleetwood Mac-cy.’

6. Sara Bareilles: Little Voice

Sara Bareilles is the best female singer songwriter you haven’t heard of. Unless you hang around certain mp3 blogger circles and then you’ll be a big fan.

Tomorrow: The rest. Oh yes.

In a bonus blog (more than your recommended daily allowance of one blog) here is some of the usual shite that should have been featured had I not done just the music lists. Nothing interesting as I have mostly been eating fudge, biscuits and fruit while watching my endless Shield DVDs. Yummy!

Good news, telly geeks! ITV1 are showing Dexter from January (that’s very soon. Yikes!) and ITV2 have Pushing Daisies from March. ITV having great shows? Two of my favourite shows? Whatever next?

Bad news, comic geeks:

The Magical Reboot Button has (sort of) been pressed over in Spider-Man land. Editorially-driven plot overhauls are a bad idea, especially when written so bloody awfully… *spoler alert* So in order for Aunt May (who must be 100 by now) to survive her ‘fatal’ shooting Peter makes a deal with the devil to have his marriage to Maty Jane belong in the ‘it didn’t ever happen at all actually’ category? And nobody remembers that he is Spider-Man? And Harry isn’t really dead any more? Oh dear. What a crock of spider shit. I shall stick with the Ultimate version from now on.

In other comics thangs…

Angel issue 5 does the inevitable tribute cover. Now where have I seen that layout before?

More reasons why I cannot stand Liz Jones, as if I needed any. This week she has mostly been moaning about how she has left that horrid London for the countryside but doesn’t like to show off. On her London past: “I went to Boy George’s birthday party at the Camden Palace where a member of Spandau Ballet tried to pick me up, sat through Marx Brothers nights at the Scala in King’s Cross, and hung out with Adam Ant… I survived the riots in Brixton – the only London area I could afford to live in – and was touched when my parents sent a food parcel. London was the centre of the universe and I looked down on people forced to live elsewhere.” How reassuringly charming of her.

On her London home what she has now gone done sold for a packet: “Georgian townhouse in an Islington square with Dido as a neighbour, mid-20th Century furniture, an Art House cinema round the corner, thrice-weekly meals in fancy organic restaurants.” Are we meant to be jealous? One of the reasons she left the capital: “Meeting a friend for dinner meant you had to spend £70 a head for a bit of flatbread and houmous and endure the waiter endlessly looking at his watch, wanting his table back.” I don’t know of this version of London. Maybe it is for the special people with more money than sense.

On how her social life transformed when she went all rural: “I now talk to so many people who drop in that in the first few days of moving here I lost my voice.” Hurrah! But unfortunately for us she could still type her verbal diarrhoea. On not showing off at all about her relocation: “I was able to buy my enormous, if completely unmodernised farm for less than the price of my London house with its hankie-size garden and, as a writer, I can work from home.” But she is a writer! Why does she need to buy a farm, if not just for something to show off about? “The average wage in Exmoor is £17,000, while houses in the National Park have risen by a third in three years; no wonder so many young people have had to leave or resort to taking drugs because there is nothing much to do. I understand the resentment towards rich urbanites such as me, who swan in and start remodelling the ancient barn as a minimalist screening room (if I can ever get dozy old West Somerset council to green-light my planning permission). But at least I am employing local people (dozens: holistic farriers, equine chiropractors, vets, plumbers, a gardener), shopping locally and looking after the land.”

Oh such a modern Mother Theresa, giving them poor yokels work. Yes, Liz Jones. And they don’t really all talk about you behind your back, you poor deluded self-obsessed thing.

My New Year Resolution, if I had one, would be to become just like my icon Liz, and spend my days writing articles about how wonderfully generous I am yet all the men in my life are mean horrible creatures for no good reason, and not at all because I moan on and on about them in the national press every bloody day until they leave me. Oh no. Then I shall complain about being told off by the police several times in a small time frame for repeatedly breaking the law, have a silly strop about how this country is prejudiced against the white middle classes (boo hoo), move to the countryside and be horribly vulgar and shallow. Excellent!

Well it’s either that or make a fansite for Melanie Phillips.

Presenting numbers 15 to 11:

15. Sophie Ellis Bextor: Trip The Light Fantastic
More pop in my chart. Man, she got a big face! Oh yes, Tha Bex-Torr done good this year and made her first album that felt like an album and not just singles plus filler. I don’t think it sold all that well but the public like crap like The X-Factor(y) so what do they know?

14. Rooney: Calling The World
Not the pug-faced footballer but that American band who write slightly old-fashioned classic pop songs that you think you’ve heard before. I am not suggesting plagiarism though.

13. Tiny Dancers: Free School Milk
Not the Elton John song that you know and love (some people more than others, for comedy purposes) but some kind of indie band in the year that I got a bit bored of indie. Good tunes is all you need sometimes.

12. Tori Amos: American Doll Posse
Tori’s albums are getting slightly better again; well this one was when compared to the last two. Still got a ‘kooky’ concept album thing going on that slightly gets in the way but it’s not bad at all. Too damn long though! Again! She needs a good editor, this would have made a fantastic 10 tracker.

11. Gabrielle: Always
She’s terribly uncool but I love Gabrielle, although she is a little less piratey than when she started out. Classic proper soul is hard to find in these days of crappy lazy tits-n-arse R&B tat so hurrah for the return of the lady who sounds like she eats and drinks Motown-ness.

Tomorrow: 10 to 6. What fun.

It’s impossible for me to put my favourite albums of 2007 in any kind of order so I haven’t. Sort of. The nearest logical method I can use is putting them in the order of how much I have listened to them, which kind of makes sense, doesn’t it?

Presenting numbers 20 to 16:

20. Stars: In Our Bedroom After The War
Canadian, a bit proggy (if that is the correct word. Well it’s a sort of concept album), rocky loveliness with two lead vocalists, one male and one female.

19. Manic Street Preachers: Send Away The Tigers
No longer dressing up in silly clothes and saying silly fings for the attention! Still love them but what was the point of Nicky Wire’s solo ‘career’ exactly?

18. Feist : The Reminder
I loved Feist long time… way before that iPod advert used her music. She’s pretty special, and a little bit mad.

17. Dragonette: Galore
Lots of great pop this year, and some of it was even in albums. Crikey!

16. Lucky Soul : The Great Unwanted
Great strong songwriting, retro production and the kind of tunes that would all sound great on the soundtrack to a very good film.

Tomorrow: 15 to 11. What fun.

As I had some time off I had some time to watch some films: Hurrah! Perfume was very odd, very weird, very good. I liked the way that we didn’t really see Grenouille as evil even though he was a serial killer, or was that just me showing my lack of normal brain? Anyway, if you want something a bit different to watch and don’t mind never wanting to see a bottle of perfume ever again then I recommend Perfume. Or buy the book coz like they made a book of it like they did wiv Lord Of Da Ringz, innit? The other film I watched was Spider-Man 3 as I hadn’t bothered to go to the cinema to see the damn toy advert masquerading as a movie. It was ‘interesting’ for many reasons: Wanting Mary Jane to die as she is so whiney and always gets captured by whatever villain is in the film ; Wondering what the hell that Venom origin was all about (1950s B-Movie? Anybody?No?) ; Trying to understand the logic of the whole “whoops, we forgot to tell you that man who killed your uncle and made you be a spideryman didn’t really kill him as some other man did and now he’s made of sand” idea ; Marvelling at the utter crapness of Emo-Spidey with his James Brown funky strutting, emo fringe and jazz club chair slinging shenanigans… and so on and so on. The Curse of Film 3 strikes again!

And now… more from from Music 2000 (and seven):

From the time spent as lead singer in forgotten indie Britpop band theaudience (lower case, like kd lang) to that bloody disco-sampling song with Spiller to her admittedly slightly patchy solo albums, Sophie Ellis Bextor has been interesting, to say the least. Her last album was the first one I actually paid for as it didn’t fall into the pop album trap of singles + filler = album. I don’t think it did all that well commercially, again, which is a shame. Them gays what whoop her need to dig deeper into their pockets and cough up the funds. Mp3 here. Probably.
Catch You Video:

Me and My Imagination video:

What fun! Tomorrow: More of the same old shit, and maybe my thoughts on that Doctor Who Christmas Special. Or will “I liked it and it was the best Christmas Special yet” do?

I don’t take normal happy famerleee snaps at Christmas, as you can see.

This is my new look for the festive season. It takes hours of preparation to look that good!

I wanted a hippopotamus for Christmas. A hippopotamus was all I wanted. And here it is, being a little bit smug that it has the comfy chair.

Cards & Roses! From friends and family and husband! Not Guns & Roses. I cannot continually pronounce “door” as “dooo-ooaa-oooaaaahhhh” like Axl.

Lots of presents. Hardly any of them were mine though.

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree. How messy and gaudy but quite nice really. We were too lazy to bother.

The Goth Archaeologist approved of her plastic John Simm As The Master action figure and lazer screwdriver (toy, not real).

In my evil lair, stroking my evil bear. I blame the Jethro DVD my father in law bought us. Why oh why oh why oh why…? Did he think we would enjoy the hilarious use of words like “poofter” and pervert”? Well the joke’s on him because we did and now I shall only be listening to jokes about all women being fat ugly slags who are also mostly prostitutes. Or something. Right, I’m off to watch some more ‘hilarious’ ‘blue material’ now. And I don’t mean Colgate.

And then I woke up. Phew.

They’ll no doubt be removed from the YooHooTube soon so here’s the amazing Doctor Who season 4 trailer and the actually looking quite great Torchwood season 2 trailers that were on last night.


The Geekernet has melted now. And no, it’s not bloody Davros, ok? And that’s not Cassandra again, it’s Felicity Kendall. But yes it is Martha Jones, in both trailers. With Captain John fancying a dog, quite literally. And you thought Captain Jack was bad.

Information: It’s Christmas so here’s my Official Christmas Portrait to tide you over until I can be bothered to write about today:

Yesh I know, I look rough. Well I’m allowed to overdo things once a year, aren’t I?

Information: Tomorrow’s blog may include the hippopotamus cushion, the worst ever comedy DVD present received, the reacquaintance with a refreshing glasss of Dubonnet, the brief fear of the car breaking down and being stranded in Essex (twice), the mystery of my brother’s missing teeth … and the rather fantastic Doctor Who Christmas Special.

I still can’t believe Christmas is all over, from a work point of view. We thrashed our sales expectations, ran around way too much, ate loads of chocolate and installed a sale. Then I lugged all my presents home (more on those in a few days), made the dinner (causing the smoke alarm to go mental as I was rather tired by then) and had a nice cup of tea and a sit down where I knocked this list of nerdy things together. Merry Humbugz and thanks to all my elves!

Angel issue 2 is in the shops now and is not bad but not as good as the Buffy comic… yet. Give it time.

It’s got Captain John in it!

Talking of Captain John, Torchwood 2 is almost here! And the trailer looks not shit at all!

I’ve been so busy, I forgot about The Daily Express!


They had a bit of variety in the headlines this past week… but still just a comic masquerading as a newspaper when you think about it.

The annual Doctor Who Christmas short story is available online right now at the Telegraph website.

It’s written by Paul Cornell so it’s rather good. And Christmassy. So, er, yeah.

It’s almost the end of the year so I thought I’d better get those lists started. So here’s the Top 10 Tee Vee 2007, with no suspense as I made great big logo-ey graphics:

1. Battlestar Galactica (Sci-Fi / Sky)
Because it’s not what you think it is if you haven’t seen it before (see Buffy The Vampire Slayer for more of that kind of judging shows by titles stuff) , it has the most complex characters on television, things don’t get neatly wrapped up in one episode and it’s basically the best damn thing on the box.

2. Doctor Who (BBC1)
Because even though it had some ropey episodes this year (Daleks, pig men, showgirls etc) when it gets it right it gets it perfect. The Weeping Angels, the Family Of Blood, the Professor Yana saga… just slightly let down by the ‘sci-fi-reboot’ ending. Well they couldn’t really destroy the world, could they? They’re not Battlestar Galactica.

3. Dexter (FX)
Because the books are fantastic and the tv series has gone off on its own tangent to an equally thrilling ride. The stalky British loony girlfirend plot almost let the side down but season 2 of Dexter matched the first for thrills and spills (of blood).

4. The Sarah Jane Adventures (BBC1)
Because CBBC are producing some great shows that can be enjoyed by adults as well as children (see Oucho the cactus for more of what I mean) and this Doctor Who spin-off succeeded where Torchwood failed: we actually cared about the characters.

5. Pushing Daisies (ABC)
Because occasionally American networks get it right. Brian Fuller’s latest show didn’t get cancelled even though it was better than everything else in the mainstream. A comedy drama about a pie maker who can bring people back to life for a minute by touching them, who splits his time between the pies and helping out with private detective-ing? With his recently-resurrected childhood sweetheart who he can never touch or her new life is snuffed out? Oh yes! The only new American show I stuck with this year.

6. 30 Rock (NBC / Five)
Because they got a second season and kept it funny. Perfect for fans of Arrested Development who are still sulking. Perfect for all fans of comedy. A clever funny show that works is a rare thing.

7. Peep Show (Channel 4)
Because it’s still going (resonably) strong in its fourth series (which is a heck of a lot for a British sitcom), its position in my chart would have been taken by That Mitchell And Webb Look series 2 if the bloody thing had been scheduled for this year.

8. Heroes (NBC / BBC2)
Because it came back with a new story and although series 2 started slow it got rather good. So there you go, I still love it. BBC2 showed the first run and I watched it all again as I am one of those comicbook geeks.

9. The Peter Serafinowicz Show (BBC2)
Because we finally got a kind of sequel to Look Around You, which is our most-watched DVD of all time apart from Father Ted. Some of the sketches didn’t work all that well but the ones that did made this an essential viewing every week. For a while, Thursdays actually were funny. Hurrah for all the lovely new comedy ideas in a show that wasn’t afraid to be silly.

10. The Shield (FX / Five)
Because sometimes you just need something gritty to watch. Heavy stuff but always thrilling, season 6 of The Shield didn’t disappoint at all… but I could have done with a few laughs while watching it.

And now, some vid-eh-oh!s:

Professor Yana works it out and everything goes rather shitty!

Brian Butterfield’s diet. In no way similar to Michael Winner’s recent diet book.

What you missed if you didn’t watch Battlestar Galactica this year. It’s on DVD though.