This is Noise To Signal. And now, over to John Hoare for Look Around You.
My darling girlfriend Tanya had a conversation with someone at work today about blogs. Her colleague asked her why they were called blogs, and she informed him that it was a contraction of "weblog".
He then asked why they weren't just called "wogs".
Christ.
This is a bit of a plug, because my girlfriend wrote a couple of articles for it, but it would be well worth mentioning anyway. kettering, the magazine of elderly British comedy, has just released Issue 5, with loads of great stuff in it - see the site for details. I'm especially looking forward to the Neil Innes interview.
For those of you who want to try before you buy, you can read Issue 1 online (PDF file) - but for £3.50 (£4.00 outside the UK), how can you go wrong? Much as I love this beautiful internet age, there's still something special about a print fanzine that warms my heart.
While Kudos are busy making a second series of our beloved Life on Mars, they will also be overseeing a pilot for a US remake of the show, commissioned by the ABC network (Lost, Invasion, some other stuff).
I'm actually really excited at this thought. Presuming they interpret the concept pretty loosely (man in some criminal investigation job gets knocked back to 1973) there's endless possibility to create something nice and specific to the US, along with a nice chunk of nostalgia. Of all the UK shows which have made the leap over to the US, Life on Mars certainly has the opportunity to be the most interesting.
There's no cast news as yet, but I'm still really looking forward to seeing this.
The episode in question is already available online, even for those without BitTorrent; I couldn't possibly condone illegal TV show downloading by telling you where, but suffice to say if you Google "south park", you don't have to go more than, ooh, a page or so before you'll find the site.
Anyway, its quite worth seeing. Not the funniest episode ever, but the way they've patched together Chef's speech from previous episodes - and made it quite deliberately sound like it's been badly patched together - is pretty darned good. Although the death scene is... really quite disturbingly visceral for a cartoon. Even South Park.
You've got to hand it to Parker and Stone, anyway. A week after the story blows up, and already, not only do they spin an episode out of the whole thing, they also guarantee that it'll have been one of the most-watched episodes of a show whose popularity, while still steadily in the "cult" bracket, certainly isn't what it used to be (although somewhat ironically, the show is far, far better nowadays than it was during the mega-popular first couple of series). The media attention will have done them far more good than harm, especially seeing as the general public at large tend to agree that Scientology is... well... a bit rubbish, really.
It must be strange to have everyone on their side, for once.
God, The Doctor Dances (yes, I did just watch it again) really is just the best episode of anything ever, isn't it?
It's got everything. It's funny. It's scary. It's clever. It's well-paced. It's beautifully-shot. It's gripping. It's just a wonderful forty-five minutes of television.
(the first episode, and indeed the two-part story as a whole, are great, obviously; but there's just something about the second part that elevates it. Maybe it's because it acknowledges that the Doctor never manages to completely succeed, never manages to save everyone - but this is the one time that he does. Coming off the back of the Time War, arguably his most crushing failure, it carries even more resonance).
It's got all the best lines, too. "Those would have been terrible last words." "Well I've got a banana, and at a pinch you could put up some shelves." "Well, there is a war on, is it possible you miscounted?" "Who says I'm not? Red bicycle when you were twelve!" "There is no escape pod onboard".
The second series has got a lot to live up to. Great as it's going to be, I can't see anything in it managing to come close to Steven Moffat's magnum opus. But I will heartily welcome being proven wrong.
For almost three and a half years Grant Naylor Productions have been slowly but surely releasing every series of their show Red Dwarf. During that period of time the quality of these releases have gone from the excellent to the utterly sublime. Now, as we see the release of Series VIII next Monday, we also see the end of the most consistently brilliant DVD sets to ever be released.
The third series premiered tonight at 9:00pm.
And, you know what, I was pretty disappointed. I'm a massive fan of the show, and its creator Tony Jordan, but I think it took the 'silly' tone just a tad too far tonight. And NO-ONE should attempt to perform a 'Gansta Rap' accent - comedically or seriously - it's just poor.
Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharoah? The creators of Life On Mars? Talking about the genesis of the show? Excellent.
It's on at the Merlin Theatre in Frome, Somerset, on Sunday 19th March 2006 @ 7:45pm. Costing £7.50 (concessions £5.00), that's worth anyone's time and money. I just wish I could make it. Bash us out a review if you go, would you?
SEE WHAT I DID THERE.
Anyway, apparently (well, I say "apparently", but it is a BBC press release; the wires, however, don't seem to have got hold of it yet) Peter Kay is going to be in Doctor Who. Hm.
(UPDATE : BBC News and Official Doctor Who site now carrying the story. It's as official as you can get, folks.)
The Culture Show, BBC TWO, Thursday night, 7.00pm and 11.20pm. Alan Moore is being interviewed. Alan Moore never does TV interviews, so this should be something of a rare treat.
Especially if you want to have your perceptions of what a man who looks like this and who wrote Watcmen, V For Vendetta and Miracleman ought to sound like completely shattered. Because, after all, he patently obviously should sound like a cross between Sir Ian McKellen and Brian Blessed. Instead, he sounds incredibly Brummie, indeed far more so than someone from Northampton should. Great stuff.
UPDATE - If you missed the Moore feature, it's now available to view on the Culture Show website, until the 16th March. Well worth a look - it's a rare chance to see Moore speak about his work (and films of his work) in a wry, amusing way.
Re: The force feeding of your 'DOWNLOADING MOVIES IS LIKE STEALING A CAR' video at the start of all your recent releases.
It pisses me off. I never get it in cars these days, but I've had to give up playing GTA because I just get too sick.
Still, at least Kingdom Hearts will be fine OH NO I FEEL SICK WITH THAT NOW FUCK IT.
Any ideas as to how to stop getting like this? I currently feel like throwing up across the room, and that was with 10 minutes play...
Co-running Ganymede & Titan gives you a certain insight into the world. Like how whilst you may surround youself with friends who utter the word "cunt" every other sentence, a lot of people still find it offensive. How, despite information about DVD release dates being ridiculously easy to find on the net, people will still post in forums asking "WHN WILL SERIS 8 B RELESED". How a lot of people just know the Dwarf Movie won't be made, despite them having no knowledge of how the industry works whatsoever.
A look at two of Ben Elton's most popular novels.
From a post on NOTBBC:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3083497399622230548
or:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=w-A68iEuV8k
Just made for fun, apparently. Lovely stuff. Luff.
Somewhere in the dark and nasty regions, blah blah blah, you know the drill. All forty episodes of The Trap Door, on one DVD. How can you go wrong? The answer follows.
Notice on the back of the DVD:
Due to the archive nature of the footage sound and picture quality may vary occasionally
THE SERIES WAS MADE IN 1988. Besides, there's no real problems with the sound and picture quality anyway. What are they up to?
YES! Eight episodes, too! I haven't been this chuffed for a long time. The funniest comedy in years.
And Peep Show has been recomissioned as well. Has Channel 4 suddenly realised what good comedy is again?
For those who are fans of all that's good about Radio 4 comedy, but haven't caught the news yet, this is very sad.
While perhaps most known for her regular appearances on The News Quiz, it was as a panelist on I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue that I most became familiar with Linda (indeed, she was, like Andy Hamilton, someone I didn't really know of before having heard them on that show). She was, along with Sandi Toksvig, one of the only women to make regular appearances on the show and genuinely hold her own among the blokes. Aside from her down-to-earth wit (like a Southern version of Victoria Wood, almost), her performances in the singing rounds ("One Song To The Tune Of Another" and "Pick Up Song") were always a joy to behold.
She also deserves great respect for never making an issue of her cancer, instead keeping it quiet - and continuing to perform - for the three and a half years she suffered from it. Britain has lost a great unsung comedy star far too young, and she will be sorely missed.
