Category: Uncategorized

Plus-Tech Squeeze Box! A fab band just featured on the last episode of Adam and Joe Go Tokyo, a fabulous show that needs to be repeated, and which needs another season. BBC Three is a Good Thing.

So, here in the UK, the third-to-last episode of 24 just aired on BBC Three. (Note to Mike Myers/Austin Powers fans – yes, there are four BBC TV mainstream channels now, two on free digital services. Other channels are kids and news, so yeah, you could claim BBC Heaven if you wanted to.)

Anyway, 24 plays a week early on BBC Three, 10.45pm on Sunday nights, straight after the previous week’s episode on BBC Two @ 10. (No ads, no logos, digital widescreen feed, lovely.) After BBC Three’s 24 showing, there’s another show, Pure 24, just to discuss the episode that’s just aired. They have exclusive interviews, snippets of the upcoming week, and talk with the guests and studio audience. Viewers ring or email their opinions in. Fun for obsessives, and followed by the excellent Adam and Joe Go Tokyo.

So what’s this got to do with me? Well, they read out something I emailed in. Which is nice. Spoilers, so select the following text to read it:

When Jack talked Kim through killing the abusive murderer, she truly became Daddy’s little girl. Fantastic.

It was a tense, breathtaking moment in 24, and though I’m very much against guns, murder or the death penalty in real life, we know this guy is extremely nasty, it’s self-defence, and most crucially, it’s fiction set in America. So woo-hoo! Bad man go bye-bye!

Can’t wait for the finale.

Must… blog… too… much… Harry Potter…

Yeah, I know, they’re supposed to be kids books, and the first two in the series pretty much are. But 3/4/5 are fun, engaging fantasy reads. Page-turners without being crap bestselling paperbacks. Well written SF/Fantasy can be pretty addictive, and when I was a kid I used to go through a lot of books. One week over summer holiday saw the first and second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant devoured. And this last week reminds me of those long-gone happy days.

Lord of the Rings one more time? Not for a while. Just yet.

Video game censorship in Australia? Yes. Film censorship in Australia? Yep, been going on for years. This latest episode is over a Ken Park film. Go for it Margaret P.!

Actually, the UK has historically been even worse; nunchakus — two wooden rods connected by a metal chain — were banned outright in film and tv until the 1990s in the UK. Only in 2001(!) has Enter the Dragon been released uncut here. Follow this page at Melon Farmers and find for “nunchaku” for more detail.

What’s going to happen with the whole thing in Iraq? There’s been enough bullshit sprayed to coat a couple of governments. Why did Bush and Blair feel an urgent need to attack Hussein so quickly?

Please tell me that Bush isn’t going to take on Iran next.

So I’ve got this new blog, and I’m trying to figure out what to do with it. And the answer comes on the way home: at least part of it’s for ranting.

Just saw a play, my first in London’s West End. Big names: Hank Azaria, Matthew Perry, Minnie Driver and Kelly Reilly in David Mamet’s Sexual Perversity in Chicago. Pretty good: well performed, great set, sharp script. Coming home, riding through Parliament Square, and there’s a pro-hunt protest.

“Families 4 Hunting”. “Hoot 4 Hunts”. Young and old.

Nothing against farmers, or the poor bastards who work in slaughterhouses. If you have to protect your animals against predators, then fine. But if you enjoy the process of firing a gun at a deer, a fox, a bear, whatever; if you raise dogs to rip small animals apart… Sorry, but if you enjoy killing, you’ve got mental health issues.

Not too bad, two and a half hours from signing up to get to this “good enough” template. Now to figure out what to do with it all. In fact, why not just link to boing boing and be done with it?

There’s got to be something to say that nobody else is saying. Let’s see if I can find it.