I could write a bloody essay on last night’s Doctor Who but I don’t have the time (lord) and don’t want to bore you all. So here are some best moments:

Massive cast list title sequence fandango!

The influence of those Marvel comics’ mega title crossovers where “everything changes!”

The end of the Missing Planets Saga and the answer to that thing about the bees.

“Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister!”

Finally visiting The Shadow Proclamation and having a Judoon chat.

Sarah Jane’s terror at hearing the Dalek voices.

Bernard Cribbins getting to tackle his second Dalek Invasion Of Earth.

Wilf’s paint gun versus Dalek:”My vision is not impaired!”

Mr Smith’s annoying fanfare getting on even Sarah Jane’s nerves.

Martha’s Wizard Of Oz style return home.

No webcam: “She wouldn’t let me, she says they’re naughty.”

Davros’ latest Dalek replenishment method.

The mentalist Dalek Caan acting like an amused Cylon Hybrid.

Donna still having something on her back, which will no doubt be very important.

The partial extermination regeneration cliffhanger.

Next week: Who knows?

I wasn’t going to blog today but when I went out to buy my Bad Wolf Magazine I couldn’t believe my eyes:

Damnit! We white men are all unemployed now.
Damn them wimmin!
Damn them ethnics!

Yes, ‘ethnics.’ Plural noun, like ‘gays.’ Whatever next?

So, the actual article? Well it lets itself down as a factual piece right from the first paragraph:

WHITE men could be blocked from jobs and promotions under a so-called equality drive unveiled by Labour today.

Note the ‘could.’ What useless journalism from The World’s Greatest Newspaper.

While this blog really doesn’t approve of ‘positive discrimination’ due to the world ‘discrimination’ and the word ‘positive’ existing together only as an oxymoron we haven’t been told any actual facts in this story at all. Surely it’s not a vague piece of ‘maybe’ + ‘I reckon’ = reader outrage? Surely no newspaper would be that shitty?

Express readers say:

TREASON AND BETRAYAL FROM THE SCUM OF THE EARTH…
26.06.08, 4:07pm

• Posted by: Moronamid

Posted by Moronamid? Moron…? I am saying nothing. Well actually I am: Rhodesia? Zimbabwe! Oh yes, it’s exactly the same. Whoops, who chopped off my arm and shot my children?

Surely it is time to play the Enoch Powell Card by now?

ENOCH POWELL, PROVED RIGHT YET AGAIN
26.06.08, 1:31pm

• Posted by: redwhiteandblue •

Oh yes. How f@kking tedious.

How about some non-ironic irony?

• Posted by: mags2853

So that kind of ‘racism’ is bad but your properly racist political party is fine? Ok.

THE ONLY THING WE CAN DO….
26.06.08, 10:05am

• Posted by: millieC •

Oh do shut your cakehole and read a book.

I see The Daily Mail went for the less ‘hate! hate!’ but more ‘grammar? Huh?’ headline:

Meh. I shall stick to reading Bad Wolf magazine:

All my local shop’s copies’ free book (choose from bloody loads!) was The Twin Dilemma.
Meh.

I thought I’d better catch up on waffling about the CDs I’ve been buying …

Sara Bareilles: Little Voice

This is the third of the ‘Old but new to the UK’ albums of 2008 (see Alphabeat and Lykke Li for examples) and it’s been played to death on mt iPod last year so it was weird when the CD arrived. She allegedly just had a top 10 hit with Love Song but I wouldn’t know about that kind of thing as I don’t pay attention. To me it’s the soundtrack to The Bath Trip 2007 that included the quaint tea room with lovely cakes but it’s also the songs that I have been playing on bookshop compilations since last year. It’s pretty much your standard good old fashioned female singer songwriter but without the negative conotations (in my eyes). I’ve probably blogged about it before anyway…

Was Not Was: Boo!

This is their first album in almost 20 years and the first CD in ages that I hadn’t already heard before it arrived in the post. It’s yer standard Was (Not Was) package with the big soul voice men, the quirky lyrics and the obligatory random not very good gimmick cameo. This time it’s from Kris Kristofferson. The album’s alright but I haven’t played it enough to decide my final thoughts, I have way too much new music!

Gabriella Cilmi: Lessons To Be Learned

This appears to be a cynical record company ploy along the lines of “Amy Winwhouse was popular, we need or own white girl with a big voice but not a crack whore one. Go find a teenager we can control” but the album is really strong. Cilmi co-wrote all of the songs with Xenomania (gays and pop fans will know who they are) and apart from the unnecessary cover of Echo Beach it’s all very nice. If I had to be lazy I would call it a one woman Girls Aloud meets Amy Winehouse but it’s simply a collection of pop songs with varying tempos and ideas that works very well.

Must. Stop. Spending. All. My. Money. On. Music.

It’s the return of Drop The Pilot where I , er, watch pilot shows for the telly…

Swingtown is a new CBS show set in 1976 and is all ‘Retro! Funky music! Funny interior design! Wigs! Wife-swapping!’ It’s a network version of The Ice Storm set in suburbia, what with its massive houses, kids with issues, special parties and occasionally outraged people. It reminded me of the TV adaptation of Tales Of The City but with straight married swingers replacing them slutty gays, and seemed to be populated with people from things that I vaguely recognised. The main stars are Miles From This Life As An American, The Female Rabbi From Six Feet Under, and CTU Agent Sarah Gavin From 24 Season. The pilot epiosde was okay, neither awful nor amazing, so I’ll give it another go and can do so soon as it’s actually being shown on a weekly basis if you know where to look. Bonus point for Alan Poul (Six Feet Under) as executive producer. No wife-swapping though, thanks but no thanks.

True Blood starts on HBO in September but I acquired a copy of the pilot and was all excited as it looks like a potential Best New Show on paper. Created by Six Feet Under/American Beauty uber-genius Alan Ball (who is in my mind in the same league as Joss Whedon and Russell T Davies) but based on a series of books I have no intention of ever reading (Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris) and starring some pretty good people, I was glad to see that it totally lived up to all of my expectations. And I am a fussy bastard. I don’t want to go Spoiler-mad but it’s set in a Louisiana small town in a world where vampires can live on synthetic blood (the titular True Blood) and revolved around a waitress who just happens to be telepathic (just because she is, okay?), her friend who can’t hold down a job in the service industry as she is rather uppity, her boss at the bar, her slutty brother who has a thing for women who f**k vamps, and a new guy in town who is the first vampire to drink at the bar where she works. All of the characters are a bit peculiar and the actors are very good, no surprise as they include Anna Paquin (X-Men, The Piano, This Is Our Youth) as Sookie the waitress, Stephen Moyer (from my home town of Brentwood, Essex) as Bill the vampire (because vampires can be called Bill) , Nelsan Ellis (from cancelled Tim ‘Firefly’ Minear show The Inside) as a gay chef LaFayette and Vinnie From Home & Away as Sookie’s withered-beefcake-looking brother Jason. The influences I spotted in the show include a bit of Twin Peaks (oddball small town but not in a cliched way), a bit of Buffy (more new vamp rules) and Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing (freaky Louisiana location) but all of the elements of this production work together to make one of the best pilots I’ve seen in a long time and the best since Pushing Daisies. Bonus point for the comedy value of having Sookie’s grandmother reading the book that the show is based on. Now I have to wait until September for the cliffhanger to be resolved…

Pretty/Handsome comes from the creators of Nip/Tuck and that might explain their punctuation quirks. It’s not on until September but it’s another leaked pilot that I thought looked promising. There seems to be a theme emerging in the last few years over on American cable shows since Nip/Tuck (two plastic surgeons with lots of money, nice houses, dysfunctional families and work environment, quite literally bring work home by operating on friends and family) inspired Huff (psychiatrist with lots of money, nice house, dysfunctional family and work environment, quite literally brings work home as is a bit crazy) and now this new show (gynaecologist with lots of money, nice house, dysfunctional family and work environment, almost brings work home as is probably a transexual and definitely a transvestite) and it left me wondering if I really needed another show about whiney rich successful white American professionals. Hmmm… the original title was 4 oz which is allegedly the weight of an average penis and a much better title in my (weird) opinion. It stars Joseph Fiennes as the token Englishman playing an American that all new shows must have, and he is Bob the transexual gynaecologist. Carrie Anne Moss from The Matrix plays his wife and Blythe Danner from Huff plays his mother as if she is still on the set of Huff where she played the mother. Robert Wagner from Hart To Hart plays his dad but there is no Stefanie Powers, bah! There are the usual 25 year old actors playing high school kids (involved in a Hollyoaksesque ‘hiding the pregnancy until childbirth’ plot), the token child genius with no common sense (who arranges a date in a chatroom that turns out to be with a paedophile, as you do) and some sympathetic transexuals who just happen to turn up to move the plot forward. It’s alll rather joyless and they use an annoying wobbly-cam with weird lighting technique for random close-ups that would usually indicate a flashback sequence but doesn’t. How distracting. I might give this a go but it’s a bit dull.

No it hasn’t! Stop bloody spying on me and getting your facts wrong, World’s Greatest Newspaper!
Go on!
Do one!

The Express’ science department have been working overtime:

(not to mention that the front cover is literally half gimmick / competition / giveaway these days)

Here we go:

THE spate of deaths among young people in Britain’s suicide capital could be linked to radio waves from dozens of mobile phone transmitter masts near the victims’ homes… The national average for proximity to a mobile phone transmitter varies depending on the type of mast. The latest masts are far more powerful so they can transmit more sophisticated data, such as photos and videos for people to download on internet phones… Masts are placed on average 800 metres away from each home across the country. In Bridgend the victims lived on average only 356 metres away.

Their logic department have been doing the same:

Thanks to The Express I have learnt that the entire population of Belgium have been starved by The Evil EU, all of Luxembourg have been taken out and shot for complaining, the wives of key anti-Europe folks in France have been gang-raped by Eurocrats and inflation in Spain is currently at 1025%. Thanks, Expresss!

Oh for fuck’s sake! The public votes for the party, the party votes for the leader! How hard is this to understand?

In other tatty tabloid news, Kerry Katona shows great insight in OK Magazine about stoopid celebrity baby names when waffling on about Ulrika Jonsson’s latest: “Now I like old-fashioned names, but I have to say that Malcolm is not one of my favourites. It’s quite a nerdy name. Let’s hope the other kids aren’t mean to him when he goes to school.” Irony points with the saucer of milk for the ‘bi-polar’ one as Katona’s ugly rugrats are called Maxwell, Heidi, Molly and Lilly-Sue.

Meanwhile, in a Bad Timing moment from The Daily Mail:

Oh, she was that kind of prostitute? The kind who sell their body for money? And not the other kind? Boo hiss boo! (Katona Mum book coming soon from John Blake publishing, the shame)

Talking of Mail hell, their star columnist Liz Jones (who is so self-obsessed she probably has a special plastic buzzing bedroom friend with her own face on it) went to court for her speeding case and was her usual charming self:

“When I stood in front of the three magistrates, I told them I had not had an accident since I passed my test in 1984 and that my licence had been clean until the past two years, when the police had suddenly gone mad.

In further shocking Liz news, she took the train to London and forgot once more that she was not above the law:

“I caught an earlier than planned train home, which meant I couldn’t get a seat.

I started to send a text message (hurrah! at least I can use my mobile on the train) and no fewer than four men rounded on me, telling me to stop making so much noise! “

Maybe they recognised her from her marvellous column?

“I’m afraid I got into an argument, bringing in three fellow women passengers to adjudicate over what was more annoying: the loud conversation the men were having, or the bleeping from my texting. I lost, and then the guard came along and ejected me to a ‘non quiet’ carriage, full of the aforementioned unruly drunks.”

Phew. Finally somebody managed to shut her up. I wonder how much the Fail pay her for these fantastic words?

Work has been weird. I still have five more weeks left with a bookshop before I become bookshopless and it’s going very slowly with mixed feelings. Change is a good thing (as good as a rest and I quite like resting) but it’s an enormous change of pretty much everything. Scary but good scary would be a way to define it, although I am rather bored of telling people about my forthcoming career change. Still, I got a kiss (on the cheek) off a lady sales rep who said I would be missed and a nice customer gave me a lozenge when I had a coughing fit while trying to assist her so the human race is not doomed just yet.

The area near to the book shop attracted a bit of a kerfuffle this week when a nasty rude vile pig who shouts at people and throws things because she is like well pretty innit came to town:

Bloody models! They wear some silly clothes, walk about a bit and think they can treat people like shit. I look forward to seeing Naomi cleaning that yellow muck off my shop window when she begins her comooonity service. I would have preferred a custodial sentence though.

I got invited to speak at a mini-conference about independent publishing on Thursday but turned it down because I am a scaredy cat shy man really and I would not have had a clue what to talk about. Of course I can talk (I rarely stop) but when it has to be specific and focused I let myself down. Then on Friday I signed my new job contract and made sure it had the word ‘manager’ in the job description. Because I’m worth it!

Things I will not miss:

Downstairs customers asking “how do I get upstairs?” when there is clearly a massive staircase and a lift.

Upstairs customers asking “how do I get downstairs?” when they must have managed to work out how to get up there already.

Broken air conditioning and dust giving me allergies.

A new ‘uplifting’ book about child abuse being published every day.

The Secret. Google it if you don’t know what it is but let’s just say it makes Scientology look sensible.

Things I will miss:

The people that I like. But I shall still see them so it’s a win-win situation.

Nice members of the public. They do exist, let’s not forget about this.

Staff discount. I have been buying a lot of geeky books in the last few weeks while I still can.

The coffee and walnut cake from the sandwich shop.

Every show eventually does a ‘what would the world be like without X?’ episode and this was Doctor Who’s turn, with Donna being influenced by Chantho from last year’s Utopia episode minus the prosthetics and ending up with a great big beetle on her back. Would have been funny if it was a Ringo Starr having a piggyback and talking in a Thomas The Tank Engine voice but oh no it was creepy and mental as expected. This was the Doctor-lite episode and it became the ‘we told you Tate was great’ one, with extra Cribbins, flashbacks, shouty old skool Donna moments and the deaths of everyone from before. But not really as they’re all really still alive and back in the most overcrowded episode ever, next week.

Best bits: Donna being tricked by Rose, the reference to The Trickster from The Sarah Jane Adventures (series 2 coming soon!) , gratuitous use of News 24 to kill major characters, Dailymaily future nazi government work camps, the Bad Wolf signs in Not Chinatown and on the TARDIS…

But never mind about all that. What about all this, next week?






Not to mention the laughing Dalek, that Harry Enfield Kebab Shop Bloke, the missing bees, Billie Piper’s lips, Catherine Tate’s leather coat, that naughty wolf, UNIT…

I just hope Russell doesn’t wimp out with the finale like last year. Please?

Hurrah! We shall all get loads of refunds on our well expensive council tax!

A nice headline from The World’s Greatest Sunday Newspaper!

Hang on a minute. Once I read the article that this headline relates to it seems that there are two degrees of theoretical reckoning betwen the statement and a fact. It appears that Tory Geezer With a Massive Sweaty Face Eric Pickles (gherkins or eggs? You decide) who used to be my local MP when I lived in Tory Essex Land reckons that if his party get into power they might look at council tax bandings, might reclassify some houses and might give them a rebate if they were originally wrongly classified. Oh. My hurrah has deflated now. Thanks, Pickles.

PS I choose sandwich pickle.

Oh no!

Not only is petrol all gone and we iz starved 2 death but NOW the rubbish is being left to fester with all the giant mutant rats for 4 weeks at a time! And Paul Burrell was giving The People’s Princess Of Hearts a portion of his sycophantic (and not at all homosexualist) cocktail sausage? Panic!!!

Hang on once again! Once I looked at the article the relationship between headline and fact seemed a little bit vague:

HOUSEHOLD dustbin collections will be cut to once a month, an industry expert warned last night. He said the move was “inevitable” to force people to recycle more…

Despite the opposition, waste management expert Steve Lee said monthly pick-ups were inevitable as recycling increased…

Mr Lee is chief executive of the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management, which represents 6,000 industry professionals. He said councils were set to follow the German system where collections have been cut to 12 a year to encourage recycling. It could happen within three years. He said: “By the time people have taken out paper, bottles, cardboard, tins and food waste, there will be hardly anything left in the black bags, so there will be no need for weekly or fortnightly collections. “People don’t like change so there will be resistance. But they will get used to it and we will eventually catch up with countries like Germany.”

“People don’t like change”???? Who could he be referring to? Is it Express readers? Like this one:

‘MUGABE’ BROWN
16.06.08, 4:35am

• Posted by: ozibill041

So Gordon Brown is just like Robert Mugabe NOW? Bloody hell! I wondered why I was starving and inflation was at a million per cent. That all makes sense now. What would I do without The World’s Greatest Newspaper?

Another scary reader has an opinion:

Back to the rubbish. Rubbish to rubbish. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.

• Posted by: ReubenMohawali

Oh yes.

Brown is also Adolf Hitler, as well as Robert Mugabe. This means he is also Saddam Hussein.

Did I tell you that I’m Madonna? Well I am.

Tonight’s Doctor Who was The One With Not Much Tate and it comes before The One With Not Much Tennant. It was also The One Like A Radio Play and The One With A Small Budget but that is not a criticism at all. A small episode with no great cosmic consequences (probably, or not?) was just what we needed before everything kicks off next week and I am sure Russell T OBE Davies can link this story to the bigger picture if he tries hard enough. Nice to see him once again re-use actors from his previous shows, have a brief Gay Agenda Moment and show that Emos are alive and well in the future. As it was an RTD story there had to be a big point made about human nature (the concept, not the Doctor Who episode/book) and bonus silly points for re-starting the running plot points of Rose, The Doctor’s name, The Medusa Cascade and whatever else I missed.

Last night’s Doctor Who was The One With Not Much Tate and it comes before The One With Not Much Tennant. It was also The One Like A Radio Play and The One With A Small Budget but that is not a criticism at all. A small episode with no great cosmic consequences (probably, or not?) was just what we needed before everything kicks off next week and I am sure Russell T OBE Davies can link this story to the bigger picture if he tries hard enough. Nice to see him once again re-use actors from his previous shows, have a brief Gay Agenda Moment and show that Emos are alive and well in the future. As it was an RTD story there had to be a big point made about human nature (the concept, not the Doctor Who episode/book) and bonus silly points for re-starting the running plot points of Rose, The Doctor’s name, The Medusa Cascade and whatever else I missed.

Next time:

Watch out! There’s still something on Donna’s back. Is it a monkey? No.

Tatty tabloid guide to creating a panic story:

Step 1: Ignore the expert advice that that won;t be a petrol shortage, find a closed petrol station and pretend it is evey petrol station. Get your foolish herd of readers to start panicking. Then put Fern in Tragic Blonde Corner as she is a dirty fat liar according to some shrews and let Paul McKenna make himself rich by pretending to make your gullible readers rich.

Step 2: Find a petrol station with a bit of a queue. This could be most petrol stations at peak time but do not let facts get in the way. Uee the Enormo-Type setting for a big ‘PANIC’ to be really subtle. Plus put Zara Phillips in Tragic Blonde Corner because her horsey is not well and scream that an old man has cancer to make him feel better. Do not mention the whole ’42 days’ thing that has been all over the real news media.

Step 3: Find a shop with no stock in Spain because their tanker drivers are on strike. Ignore that this may only affect 1 in 10 shops here and the empty shelves are in Spain which is another country anyway. Use Super Underliney Red (copyright Maddiethon era Express) to be extremely subtle. Replace Tragic Blonde Corner with panic photo as it is a panic and usual rules do not apply. At least The World’s Greatest Newspaper is still only 40p.

Right, that’s enough of that shit.

Issue 2 of Captain Britain And MI13 is out now and is The World’s Greatest Comicbook. For today at least. The new issue of that Angel ‘season 6(ish)’ comic is also out but I couldn’t find anything worth getting excited about in it.

It’s time for Bloggers Blogging About Big Brother (But Not Me) again! This week comes courtesy of Timey Wimey Mimey who quite rightly finds horror and amusement in the kind of person who decides to live in a televisual house, act bloody rude and shouty all day then accuse everyone who objects to their c@nty ways of being “simple” or “disrespectful.” Oh the delicious irony:

So we have a character called ‘Alexandra’ who’s had to fight for everything she ever got, who’s grateful for her mother’s tough love, who has NO FUCKING IDEA THAT SHE’S UNIMAGINABLY RUDE AND AGGRESSIVE. She made me a bit cross. In a kill or be killed situation I can pull all manner of defensive attacks out of my bag. In the heat of an argument it can seem perfectly reasonable to spit out all manner of foul smelling venom. It’s not that I’m unfamiliar with conflict.

Thanks, Mimey. More Bloggers Blogging Aboput Big Brother (But Not Me) next week. Probably.