I Presume His Mother Is Called Lois Kane (Or Kathy Lane)*

This young chap may well be the owner of the coolest name ever.

Granted, it could well be a hoax (though maybe not), but if it's for real, no wonder he's smiling.

*I am such a geek.

Writing Opportunity: CBBC

An interesting call for scripts over on the BBC Writersroom website; they're after "the next generation of CBBC writers with fresh perspectives, original voices, and the ability to create unforgettable characters", and they're asking for 30-minute original TV scripts.

Once you've filled out the online application form, all submissions should be sent in hard copy, to CBBC New Writers, BBC writersroom: 1st Floor, Grafton House, 379 Euston Road, London NW1 3AU by 5pm on Wednesday 1 July 2009. There'll then be a masterclass for 15-20 shortlisted writers in July, and then eight of those writers will attend a residential week in late September, and then the finalists out of the eight will receive mentoring and £300.

Full details are here, there's a Frequently Asked Questions page here, and if you want more information on CBBC generally, cast your eyes and mouse here.

My immediate feeling about it? The deadline's a good six weeks or so away, which seems feasible time-wise, and overall it sounds worth having a go. In all honesty, I've never really thought about writing for the 6-12 age range, but on the other hand I've not discounted it either, and I can readily imagine that writing for a younger audience is often more of a challenge than, say, writing for one's peers.

So I'll definitely have a think about it, and see if I've got any stories, or even story ideas or loose structural notions, which might fit the bill.

Anyone else likely to enter this?

Edited: to add in details about the online application form. Whereas I am often forgetful, Piers has a solid memory. Thanks, Mr B!

Reader? I'm Not Wedded To It

I've been rather sceptical about the prospect of e-Readers (or electronic books, or whatever you want to call them) for a while, though I can see the fundamental appeal of being able to take loads of books with you on, say, a lengthy holiday.

My main concern is that they seem to have mutually exclusive operating and formatting systems and the like (what I believe is known as 'proprietary software'), and I'm always rather concerned that that sort of thing usually leads to dwindling availability of content, no matter how good the actual kit might be (like the shelves of pre-recorded MiniDiscs not taking over your local HMV, if you see what I mean).

Anyway, there seems to have been a surge in development in this area; the frankly nice-looking item pictured here is the unfortunately named Cool-Er, which has the advantage of looking a lot like an iPod. Mind you, it doesn't have the wireless capability of Amazon's Kindle device (see John August's report of buying a book wirelessly here - I can see why this would be a handy thing to have for those spur-of-the-moment purchases, though I can also see why that might leave me broke. I'm a sponzanyous kinda guy).

Magazines and newspapers are often cited as being the key items to get onto these devices to really get them to sell, and I can see why; a lot of the magazines I read aren't worth me keeping after I'm done (oh, I used to do this, but space considerations and the question will I ever read these again? eventually led to a purge), and so being able to read the thing and then delete it - or keep a copy on the computer or even print off pages of particular note - would be something of a boon.

And the same for a lot of comics I read - I'm much inclined nowadays to buy single issues and then ditch them and buy collected editions (assuming that it's something I'd see myself reading repeatedly), so being able to buy e-comics of the individual issues and then read them away from the computer would be pretty neat. Though of course, a lot of US comics are printed in colour, and no colour readers are available... yet.

One concern I have, especially with books or comics which might demand a bit of work from the reader, would be the ability to flip back a page or two to re-read a paragraph or panel which has, now you've read a little further, come to have a possible double meaning or heightened relevance. If it's as easy as the manufacturers suggest to turn the page, then that's fine, but if not... well, I'm going to take a bit more convincing before thinking about shifting to the electronic form, especially as paper never has battery issues or suffers data crashes. Well, apart from dropping it in the bath or a puddle.

All that said, though, I like the look of the Cool-Er. But with my backlog of books in the 'to be read' pile (well, on a shelf, but you know what I mean), I doubt I should really be thinking about new ways in which to get hold of books, should I ? Although one might make the argument that holding them electronically would take up less room... hmm.

The photo above is by Jon Snyder from the Wired.com site. No copyright infringement is intended.

No, Seriously : Blimey

You might want to close down any unnecessary applications running on your computer, in case they slow down the general working of things, before you click the following link.

No, really, I mean it, you're going to want things running as whizzily as possible on your electronic Babbage difference engine.

Ready? Okay, click here and if it doesn't blow your mind, then... well, I'm kind of surprised, and I'm sorry to have wasted your time.

If it appeals, though... thought you'd like it!

Not So Much Unintelligent Design, More Unfathomable

Continuing the occasional - and unequivocally highbrow - series of posts on the subject of urinals, here's one that, for the chaps, saves you the trouble of shaking.

Though would you really trust that claw-like hand?

And god only knows what the designer of this was thinking. I can only hope it was 4am, the deadline was close, and the Rolling Stones started playing on the radio...

What Are You Doing? What Are You Doing At The Moment? Post Your Thoughts, Interact With People, And More

A friend of mine recently experienced a relationship break-up, and she remarked that one of the things which had most stung had been the fact that her ex-partner had changed their Facebook status to Single.

It struck me that she's not the first person to have commented on this in recent times, and indeed within the last week or so I heard another tale on a similar theme. One of the reasons it can feel like adding insult to injury, I guess, is the fact that it's a very public way to state things, akin to issuing a press release or whatever (indeed, Stephen Fry's explained his use of Twitter as a way to pass information to large numbers of people), and if you're the other party in a break-up you could well be still rattled by the change of circumstances that seeing it online for all your friends or followers or just anyone with a computer could be a bit unpleasant.

However, I'm also inclined to wonder if part of the reason seeing your ex change their status to Single or It's Complicated or whatever is because of the way it quite categorically removes any ambiguity. If you're the split-ee and you're sitting in a state of shock, in the pre-Status Update days you could listen to suitably melancholy music and wonder if the other person's sitting at home feeling the same way and wondering if they've made a mistake. But now, you turn to your friends for some online chat and support (or, in these modern times, the comfort of near-strangers), only to be told that your ex has changed their status to Single and loving it, and that's probably not really going to help.

In a way, the development of the facility to update everyone everywhere with anything you're doing or thinking 24/7/365 means that uncertainty is removed from a lot of time periods which would otherwise be pretty much blank.

Obviously, this is frequently a useful thing:
"Where's Terry? He's meant to be meeting us here."
"He's running late, he tweeted five minutes ago that he was stuck on a bus which had been diverted through Narnia."

... but this ease of communication and update can remove some of the mistiness - or indeed mystery - that sometimes adds a certain something to our lives. That person you've recently met and are thinking about in that way might be thinking about you in the same way, but then again their status from five minutes ago is 'Bored', so you kind of hope that they're not thinking about you if that's the case, but on the other hand you'd kind of like it if they were thinking about you and you'd almost have been better off not knowing that little nugget.

In the worst instances - such as the online changes of relationship status mentioned above - the updates take an almost binary form; the person is happy or not, coupled-up or not, and so on, and for another party to see that one has become the other can make it appear more of a leap than it may actually be, which can be uncomfortable to read.

It's probably because I've historically been the dump-ee (I'm talking about the past; don't get your hopes up about exploiting any desolate desperation on my part, ladies, I'm married now) that I feel empathy with the people I know who've smarted at seeing their recent ex update their personal details online, but there is a part of me that feels that the constant capacity to know what everyone you know is doing or thinking about pretty much constantly isn't necessarily a boon. It's all a question of how you use these capacities, I guess, and the degree of detail you go into about particular subjects; not only does great detail risk boring your more marginal acquaintances, but it also means that your actual meet-up-in-real-life friends, if too well briefed, may not feel the need to meet up for a catch up, as they already know exactly what you've been up to... in more detail than they needed.

You're probably thinking that I sound luddite and slightly preachy on this, but then again you may also realise that I'm fairly well-placed to demonstrate a certain sanctimony on this subject, given that this blog is, more times than not, wildly impersonal and utterly lacking in any kind of content whatsover; the signal to noise ratio, I think you'd agree, is emphatically in favour of noise, leading to the content being, all too often, more of a 0 than a 1.

Trendwatch: The Word That Seems To Be On MPs' Tongues And Printing Presses Alike

I've written several times before about what a rubbish newspaper I consider the London Evening Standard to be, and it's recently taken the unusual - some might say downright strange - step of apologising for its editorial stance (mainly because it has a new owner and change of editorial line-up). A sample of the ad campaign is shown here.

I certainly wouldn't argue with the assessment of it as being negative - the selection of headlines here gives a flavour of its previous approach - but given that the paper's previously been running a loyalty card scheme which enables readers to register and pay a bit upfront and get the paper cheaper , I have one question:

Are people who bought issues of the Evening Standard before the relaunch going to be given refunds?

This Talk Of Constriction Makes My Eyes Widen... In Surprise

Once again, I'm sharing a link with you, but I simply had to share the not-safe-for-work-ness that is this book.

Granted, much of the apparent lunacy of it probably derives from translating a book through Babelfish and back and then back again (how else to explain the sentences on the sample pages which are visible via the link?), but still, it's very odd.

Actually, I've just realised the comments further down the page are a mix of people giggling in the same childish manner as me, and quite a few saying there might be something in it. What a strange and delightful world we live in.

Death Stalks A Sleepy Country Village... But Nobody Gives A Monkey's, It Seems

Strangely enough, the older I get, the less certain I get about many things, but I often find myself getting more and more convinced (some might say dogmatic) about aspects of the whole business of storytelling (and from that, writing).

One such conviction relates to the notion of 'playing fair' with the audience, especially in tales involving a mystery or last-minute twist revelation. This isn't a new notion by any means - S.S.Van Dine wrote about it over 80 years ago - but I think it's one that remains key, especially as we reach a stage where ever more complicated and convoluted layers of bluff and misdirection are required to surprise an audience.

In murder mysteries, it's pretty poor form to reveal that the killer was someone who we've never met before the final page; for this reason, due to only partly paying attention, I thought that the end of Jagged Edge was a cheat, as I thought it was revealing the killer to be a minor background character - not the case, but that's the kind of thing I'm driving at.

Interestingly, I think that this is an expectation which audiences have carried over into general expectations of narrative, and I'd say that this is why hardly any (I'd go out on a limb and say none, but there's almost inevitably an exception or two on a global scale) of the people who are voted winners of Big Brother are contestants who came into the house towards the end of the show's run: you shouldn't be able to win the game with a piece which hasn't been on the board for the duration. For this reason, if you're doing an exam which features a scenario with characters called A, B and C and you have to write about the scenario, you tend to get pretty short shrift (or, as it's known in academic terms, crappy marks) if you introduce characters D and E and take the story in a direction more in line with the areas you've revised.

Also in murder mysteries, there's pretty much a tacit rule that you will, at some stage, reveal the identity of the murderer (or murderers). It's rare to have a story where you can get away with hooking the reader in with a 'whodunnit?' mystery and then get away with not stating who the killer is because another, more compelling storyline intervenes. David Lynch apparently didn't want to reveal who the killer of Laura Palmer was in Twin Peaks, and as much as I love that show, I'd have felt rather cheated if the mystery hadn't been resolved; similarly, the opening scene of The Wire sets up a murder scene, and whilst I haven't watched enough of the show to know if we find out who killed the delightfully-named Snot Boogie, I rather hope so, though I guess one might argue that in the more naturalistic vein of that show, an unsolved murder may be more part of the setting than a narrative thread in its own right.

In fact, now I muse upon it, I can't think of any entirely satisfying stories that end with a murder left unresolved; I'm perhaps being stupid, but I was left uncertain as to the killer's identity at the end of Grant Morrison and Jon J Muth's The Mystery Play, and so for me the story - unfortunately given its themes - ended without the appropriate Revelation. I have a feeling that the end of the Polanski film The Ninth Gate may have ended with some of its plot threads left dangling, though that might just be my memory playing tricks; I have a vague recollection of it ending with the protagonist standing before the place he's been seeking, and the film just rather ending. On the other hand, that in itself is rather like the end of Browning's poem Childe Roland To The Dark Tower Came, which ends in a similarly 'sudden' fashion; no wonder Stephen King was inspired to write about what happened when Roland arrived at The Dark Tower.

I suppose the most famous example of a story finishing with a murder left unsolved would be The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, wherein the death of the chauffeur Owen Taylor isn't solved. Legend has it that when they were making the film version, the screenwriters realised that this wasn't explained in the novel, and sent a telegram to Chandler asking who had killed Taylor... only to receive the reply that he didn't know either.

Anyway, all this sort of thing has been on my mind lately because it seems that the good people behind Emmerdale appear to have decided to just let the Who Killed Tom King? storyline drop away, despite the fact that the murderer has not been brought to justice. Granted, the audience knows who killed him (unsurprisingly, one of his family), but given the publicity that surrounded the murder itself when it was screened in December 2006, it feels a little like a joke without a punchline for there not to have been some equivalent narrative closure, to my mind. In the same way that I as an audience member didn't feel raging hysteria when John Hannah's character recited Monty Python lines in Sliding Doors, for me as an audience member it doesn't quite ring true that people who live in such a small village would be content to go about their lives in the pretty certain knowledge that a killer still walks amongst them.

It's often said - again, I refer you to Mr Van Dine's article linked above - that in a mystery story it's only right that the audience is at an level of knowledge equivalent to that of the detective; that seems fair to me, as it allows you to play along and try to solve it, which adds to the enjoyment and involvement. However, it occurs to me that it's not just that the characters shouldn't be privy to facts which the reader is excluded from, but that the reverse is equally true; unless you're seeking to display the disparity between what characters in a story believe to be true, and the actual situation (as in, say, Peep Show), you probably don't want the audience to be privy to knowledge which, if the characters were aware of it, would make them see things in a very different way. Or, at least, not for a sustained period of time.

It may well be that there's a plan to bring some proper in-world resolution to the Tom King murder storyline in Emmerdale - though I have to hope they're not going to wait until the traditional big-story time of Christmas to wheel it out, as that would make it two years since its inception, including many months where it's not been given much airtime - because at the moment it means that I'm watching the programme with a feeling that something major's going unresolved.

Whilst it's established to the viewer that the death was an accident, a crime of passion unlikely to happen again, the characters living in the village don't know that, and so within the reality of the show it's something that would cast a shadow over their daily lives. What it does, more than anything, is remind me of the artifice of the programme, as if I'm constantly able to see the strings and hear the plot levers moving things, whilst a elephantine item in the middle of the room goes ignored.

And one of the things I've always been sure about, when it comes to the telling of stories, is that you want to utterly absorb your audience in the story; if you're going to tell a tale of events which never happened to people who don't exist in a made-up situation, you want avoid reminding your audience of this by jolting them out of the story, especially on something avoidable and fundamental.

Am I over-thinking this? Very possibly, but I wanted to provide a bit more of a meaty post today by way of balancing out the recent tendency towards just supplying you with links, and it was either this or a rather more facile post about the way that EastEnders seems to want to present the Mitchell sisters as alluring sex kittens but completely blows it by having them spend most of their time either shouting angrily or crying. Perhaps I've got strange tastes, but I don't find that particularly appealing, on my TV screen or in real life.

Delay That Gratification!

Whatever you do, do not click this link and read what you find.


Oh, you disappoint me.

A Little Bit Of Magic For Sunday Afternoon...

Once again, I gather I'm rather late in discovering this, but if you haven't seen it before, I think you'll like this:

The Colour-Changing Card Trick, Presented by Richard Wiseman.

If, like me, you're new to it, you'll probably do what I did, which was to want to show someone else... which is why I'm posting it here.

Apologies for not embedding it - the Youtube version wouldn't let me, for some reason.

Choc And A Book? They Should Have Thrown In a Mug Of Tea To Complete The Package, Really...

I've said it before, and I'll no doubt say it many more times: chocolate is an evil which must be stamped out - one bar at a time, if need be.

Anyway, tying together chocolate with the not-rubbish pastime of reading, Galaxy are currently running a promotion where their products have little codes inside the wrapper, and you can enter those onto their website and win a book. As the (swiped from their site) picture shows, they have a million books to be won by the end of August, which is a lot of books. Almost as many as are glaring at me from my 'to read' shelf, but that's not something I ought to get into now.

The thing is, you don't have to buy chocolate (or, indeed, anything) to enter - if you go to this page and enter the appropriate details, they'll send you a free code, so you can have a go for nothing. And you're allowed to request a code every day until the promotion ends, which seems pretty fair to me.

You might want to check the list of books to see if the possible prizes are the sort of book you'd like to read, granted, but if you do win one, let me know, eh ? I've tried a couple of times now with no success, and I'm starting to think it's like one of those Reader's Digest Prize Draws that we're told are legit, but no-one really seems to believe in...

I'm Not The Only One Who Sees The Paradox Of Its Name, Am I ?

Final Draft, the software much used by writers (and especially screenwriters) has now come out in version 8.

Ignoring the fact that the design of the box makes it look like a washing machine, I've found it slightly odd that I haven't seen many reviews of it - in fact, when I was looking for information on the new features, Amazon's page for it seemed to have more actual data than FD's own sales pages, which seemed strange.

I'm vaguely thinking about investing in a copy (I gather v8 is Vista-compatible), but was wondering if any of you lovely people had heard anything (good or bad) about it- or even have first-hand experience of using it - which you could share.

As I say, I'm mulling over the possibility of thinking about considering buying a copy, but if it's riddled with bugs - oh, I'm sorry, I mean undocumented features - then I'd appreciate being told before I spend any money. Thanks!

Ah, Me. The Sting Of Rejection.

Tch, I've just found out that a piece of my writing, despite making it into the finalists' enclosure, has not romped over the finish line to publication. A pity, as it would have meant inclusion in a proper real book with an ISBN and indicia and everything, on sale in normal bookshops up and down the land, and I'm sure that you can imagine just how giddy that would have made me (mind you, I probably would have been pretty insufferable about it, so you good readers have probably dodged a metaphorical bullet).

Anyway, my immediate reaction was one of slight disappointment, coupled with a suspicion that, like Thomas Chatterton (pictured), I'm destined to die alone in my artist's garrett, unloved and unrecognised... but then I remembered I live in a flat, with my wife, which pretty much means that suspicion isn't exactly one which is grounded in reality.

Still, the fact it made it into the final round is pretty cool, and I have to be realistic and conclude that it wasn't quite good enough, so the solution has to be to make sure that the next thing I write is good enough... in fact, I want it to be far better than 'good enough', and there's really only one way to make sure that's the case, isn't there ?

And so: to the keyboard!

(In case you're wondering why I'm not naming the book in question, there are two reasons:

1 - I'm not really bitter about it, and I wouldn't want this post to seem like a rant, as it's more like a declaration of intent to re-double my efforts; and

2 - I know how loyal and sympathetic you good people are, and I don't want to be seen to be implicitly condoning any kind of boycott of the book in question. I appreciate your loyalty, I really do, but there's no need for consumer action, I assure you.)

Which Is Worse? The Premise Or The Cover?

I'm sure there's a whole world of funeral (or, indeed, funereal) music which I'm blissfully unaware of, but surely this album is going a bit too far?

A nice touch is the way a lot of the tracks are listed as being 'made famous by' one person, but the version on the compilation is performed by someone else (to my mind, the most egregious example being track two).

The non-original artist nature of some of the tracks (quite a few of them, actually) puts me in mind of the old Top Of The Pops LPs that you see in charity shops or at boot sales - you know the ones, they usually featured a smiling woman in a bikini on the cover.

Or is it just me that recalls that aspect of those LPs? Ah well.

Bet He Doesn't Get Hassled At Traffic Lights By The Windscreen-Washing Folks

Over at his blog, m'chum Steve recently shared the amusing story of an art student's work to make a car blend in with its surroundings - if you haven't already seen the story, I recommend a quick scoot over to look at it. Come back here, though. Please. I get so very lonely.

Back now? Fun story, I think you'd agree. Anyway, within 24 hours of seeing about the vanishing car, I came across a magazine article about Benedict Radcliffe, an artist who, as opposed to making a car disappear, made an illusory Lamborghini, which you can see above. That's right, the orange 'drawing' above isn't a drawing at all, it's a to-scale model of the car's outline which he actually placed on the street.

For more details of how Benedict went about making this eye-startling item, with more pictures, have a look here.

A Worrying Demonstration Of The Power Of Marketing

Don't get me wrong, I like Melody Gardot's work. It reminds me of the music of Madeleine Peyroux, with the vocals of Rachael Yamagata, and that blend is very pleasing to the ear.

However...

Well, the problem is, the style of the promotional material for her releases, as pictured here, makes me hear one thing, and one thing alone, in my head.

"Designer frames now 2 for 1 at Vision Express."

I'm not proud of it, I'm just being honest.

Next Weekend, I Shall Go Into The Woods With The Men's Group And Recite Poetry As Another Man Strikes A Drum

A boyish afternoon yesterday, as Mrs Soanes and I rather belatedly cashed in a wedding pressie from Mr and Mrs Toby; a voyage on a Rigid Inflatable Boat (RIB) down the Thames.

It was, for the record, fab, and if you get the chance to clamber into one of these boats and go wheeeeeeee down the Thames (or any other river, for that matter), I recommend it. Anyway, here are some pictures...

Passing the Houses of Parliament. Look at the spray there! Why, it's almost like the start of The World Is Not Enough).

It may look as if I'm emulating The Shadow, but in fact the lifejacket they gave me was being blown back by the sheer force of the wind as we sped along. That explains the swept-back hair, too. Well, that and my insistence on styling myself like some kind of fop-about-town, but that's a topic for another time.

Mrs Soanes, scooting along at my side in the RIB. How does she keep smiling, when she's married to me? I really don't know, but I'm not going to question it out loud, in case she starts to question it as well, and at the moment I seem to be getting away with it. Shh, don't spoil it.

On getting out of the RIB and once again onto dry land, we wandered along London's South Bank, where, as part of the BFI's James Bond Weekender, they're exhibiting a number of cars from the Bond films.

Here, you can see me pointing at an Aston Martin from Goldeneye, as if mocking its blatancy as an *ahem* extension for the insecure male. Meanwhile, a passer-by points at a part of me as if to suggest that perhaps I'm in need of just such an extension. Tch, everyone's a critic. Still, he could have been pointing about a foot higher at my gut (something which I could actually do something to correct, though in my defence I'd just had a splendid lunch).

So, a positively manly afternoon - racing along the river at a rate of knots, followed by looking at cars from Bond films. Grr, frankly. I can almost feel a hair sprouting on my chest. Which is a first.

And He Looked From Musician, To Music Journalist, And Back Again; But Already It Was Impossible To Say Which Was Which*

Whilst Neil Tennant is the most obvious example of someone crossing over from writing about music to performing it (from Smash Hits to being in the Pet Shop Boys), it looks as if he may not be the only one.

Presented for your comparison: Roger Daltrey of The Who, and David Hepworth of The Word magazine (a very good magazine - even if it does go on about The Wire to the extent that I sometimes wonder why they don't just change two letters of the mag's title and be done with it).

*Apologies to Eric Arthur Blair.

Yes, I Know The Subject Of MPs' Expenses Has Been Well-Covered Elsewhere, But....

... two thoughts:

1. Isn't allowing MPs to decide the nature and scope of their own expenses a little like letting kleptomaniacs vote on revisions to the 1968 Theft Act?

2. How does the fact that Gordon Brown's attempts to reform the expenses procedure have been kicked out by MPs become something which is interpreted as a dent in his credibity as PM? Surely, by MPs voting to reject the reforms, and therefore voting in favour of maintaining a system which is clearly open to (and indeed subject to) abuse, that reflects far more damningly on MPs generally?

Granted, I'm rather inclined not to trust MPs as an instinctive reaction, but still...

BBC Writersroom At Hightide Festival In Suffolk

It's pretty short notice (mainly because I've only just spotted it's happening), but I thought I'd just mention that the BBC Writersroom are holding a session at the Hightide Festival in Suffolk.

The session is at 3.30pm on Saturday 9 May - full details are here.

In this sort of post, this is usually the point where I'd say that you have to e-mail to get your name added to the mailing list, but it seems to be impossible to book online for the event at the moment. If you want to go, it might be worth giving them a call, or perhaps seeing if the Reserve tickets>> button starts working again at some point in the future.

Of course, you could turn up and hope for the best, though I'd only really recommend that if you live close by or are attending Hightide anyway.

He's Talking To Him, But His Career's In Pretty Good Shape, To Put It Mildly

I've long been a fan of the writing of Joe Queenan. The best of his work, to my mind, is the stuff on film and general pop culture, but his autobiographical writing isn't so shabby either.

So I was quite interested to see that there was an interview by Queenan with William Goldman, a screenwriter whose CV isn't what anyone could call shabby - All The President's Men, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, Misery, and The Princess Bride - in one of the newspapers last weekend. Not interested enough to actually pay for it, mind.

But, through the wonders of the internet, the interview's now available online (where it's free to read), and it's located here.

It's rather lighter than I'd expected - oh, all right, I admit it, I was kind of hoping for a clash between two fairly-strongly-opinioned men - and not as scabrous as Queenan's usual style; then again, Goldman knows more about screenwriting and working in Hollywood than many people will learn in a dozen lifetimes, so it's certainly worth a look.

An Open Letter To The News Media Re: Swine Flu

Dear The News Media

I know I haven't been paying much attention to you for a while - mainly since the whole Diana volte-face thing, though there's no need for me to get into that again here - but I thought I'd just write you a quick note.

I notice that you're currently rather concerned about alerting me to the possibility of swine flu. Not just me, obviously, everyone with eyes and ears to see, read or hear your latest updates, but I won't presume to speak for other people. As you and I both know, public opinion is a startlingly nebulous thing, and can change overnight... yeah, okay, I'm circling back to the Diana thing there, I guess, so I'll move on.

Anyway, whilst I really appreciate the warnings about swine flu, I... well, in all honesty, I'm beginning to think this is a bit of a cry wolf situation. You might remember that towards the tail end of 2001, you seemed intent on telling me that I was likely to receive anthrax in the post, and that didn't happen to me at all (or to anyone else I know, come to that). And shortly after that, you alerted me to the dangers of SARS, and then bird flu, both illustrated with lots of pictures of people wearing those paper masks over their mouths, and much use of the word 'pandemic'.

As we both know, I didn't die of anthrax or SARS or bird flu. Some people did, granted, and that's obviously a bad thing, but I'm kind of certain that the ratio of coverage to actual statistical risk was pretty badly out of whack. A cynical person might almost think that the issue was being exaggerated to fill column inches or airtime.

I'm sure you can see why I might be sceptical about the real likelihood of swine flu being a 'pandemic' (the preferred word for these things now, it seems, just as 'terrorists' are now 'terror gangs'). I'll bear the possible risks in mind, but on the basis of past experience, you can't really blame me for thinking that you're just scaremongering and talking out of your arse.

Hope the family's well -

Lots of Love
John
xxx

Perhaps Unsurprisingly, This Question Was Prompted By My Watching Red Dwarf : Back To Earth

Will there ever be a post-Final Cut of Blade Runner, reflecting the original vision of Hampton Fancher and David Peoples?

Fame! Does It Make You Live Forever, Or Make A Man Take Things Over?

As you might have heard, Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, has a new book coming out in September.

I was very unimpressed by TDVC, and increasingly bewildered and then rather annoyed by the fuss surrounding it, though as M'Colleague pointed out, Brown probably had very little idea that the book would be as popular as it turned out to be, and that he probably wrote as good a book as he could. A fair point, and one for me to bear in mind when I start foaming at the mouth about Baigent and Leigh and how I didn't believe them either.

Anyway, here's an interesting - if rather slight - article on authors suddenly becoming successful.

My general feeling is that if you're going to write for an audience, you have to be aware of the possibility - howsoever slim - that you might find yourself wildly successful and catapulted into the public eye... equally, you have to accept the possibility that you may toil away for years without anyone at all saying they like your work.

And like the final paragraph of that article, I suspect most writers I know would rather have to face the trauma of heightened expectations for the next book as opposed to wondering how the rent's going to be paid next month.

500 of 1910, Two Men, A Queue

An interesting event if you're a fan of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, though I can't make it (grr)...

Creators Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill will be signing the first volume of the new series, Century: 1910 at Gosh!, my favoured comic shop in London, next Saturday (2nd May), from 2pm-5pm.

More intriguingly, as the book doesn't come out until the end of May, 500 copies are apparently being specially air-freighted over for this event. Unfortunately for those of us who can't make it, they're not takng reservations for signed copies of the book - the advance copies are going to be available exclusively on the day of the signing, and they'll be limited to two copies per customer.

If you can make it, it's obviously a rare chance to get the book signed by both creators, but if not... well like me, you'll have to wait until the end of May.

It's Not Easy Coming Up With Ideas, You Know

Yeah, we've got this new rom-com coming out.

We're not expecting it to break any records or anything - after all, audiences have never seemed to be as keen on Matthew McConaughey as the studios are - but I thought it wouldn't hurt to aim high. Why not, you know?

So I thought that, for the poster design, I'd rip off one of the most successful romantic comedies of all time. I reckon some of the magic should rub off, but nobody'll guess why, and I'll get all the glory.

Unless someone with nothing better to do with their time notices it, of course, but hey, what can you do?

I Arrive Late For The Party Once Again, But Here's Your Ticket To The Screening Room

I recently watched the entire run of Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, the short-lived comedy-drama from Aaron 'West Wing' Sorkin.

It got very mixed reviews and limited ratings, and kind of limped to the end of its first and only season, and wasn't renewed. In comparison with the not-entirely-dissimilar 30 Rock, it's a lot more worthy and less funny, but I enjoyed it; there are signs of changes of direction and tone as the end drew nigh, presumably as they tried to find new ways to draw viewers in.

In my (frankly pretty worthless) opinion, there were two fundamental problems with the show:

1. It kind of assumes that the audience has an enormous familiarity with, and affection for, Saturday Night Live. As a limey, my exposure to it has been very limited, but I'm aware of it and some of its history. So it didn't trouble me, but I can imagine that audiences of pretty much any nation who are unaware, or actively unfond of, SNL might well be put off.

2. Whilst The West Wing deals with heavy-duty stuff like kidnappings and war and terrorism, Studio 60 is rather hobbled from the start by the fact that, for all the on-screen depiction of concern and hard work, it is ultimately 'only about a TV show'. I'm not denigrating TV as a medium, but I think the show has an uphill struggle to make some of the plotlines seem as important to the viewer as they appear to be to the characters. This is slightly echoed by the way a lot of the in-show comedy bits aren't gutbustingly funny, despite the way the in-studio audience may be reacting. There's a slight mismatch between the way you're told to react to an item, and the way you may actually react.

For all this, though, I think there was a lot to like about Studio 60, and Matthew Perry did a pretty good job of making me forget he'd been in that other TV programme.

Anyway, I mentioned a Screening Room up above, and by that I mean a new-ish feature on Amazon (UK version) whereby you can watch entire TV shows - including, yes, the pilot episode of Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip - for free.

The Screening Room is located here. Keep your feet off the chairs, if you don't mind. Night vision technology may be utilised to ensure compliance.

I Want You To Learn From My Mistakes. Lord Knows, I Seem Incapable Of Doing So.

Like Alan Partridge in the Linton Travel Tavern, or ... um, thingy in Man In A Suitcase, my lovely wife and I spent the last week or so living out of a suitcase (well, a couple of them) in a hotel not far from our home.

In case you're assuming that the accumulation of books and CDs and DVDs had reached the stage where it was easier for us to move out and leave the material possessions to take over the flat, fear not; this was a planned re-location while we had sturdy artisans in replacing the kitchen and bathroom (including tearing out the plumbing and re-plastering the ceilings), and we decided it was best to move elsewhere and keep out of their way.

Living within twenty minutes of home, but not actually at home, was a strange experience; kind of limbo-like, but pleasant enough (the hotel was nice, and had room service, so no complaints there), even if towards the end of it we were keen to get home.

Anyway, I learned various things from the experience, and I thought I'd share them with you. Hints 'n' tips, as it were.

If you're staying away from home whilst renovation work's being carried out, for pity's sake, do not pop home to see how it's going.

I can't stress this enough. It's always a bit weird to be away from home anyway, but if you then return to the location you're feeling faintly disconnected from only to see it in a state of disrepair, it's not going to cheer you up one bit.

The sight which confronted us on a halfway-through visit home was pretty horrifying - pipes sticking out of walls at scary angles, light fittings hanging from the ceiling like slabs of animal carcase in one of those refrigerated lorries, and so much dust it looked as if it had been snowing indoors. A scene of devastation, in short, not seen in London's East End since the Blitz*.

I think it was Thomas Wolfe who wrote that you can never go home. As regards popping in to see how the work's going, make that you shouldn't go home.

Unaccustomed to hard graft? That makes two of us. Keep at least one eye on your surroundings.

For example, if you're lifting a box of floor tiles onto a trolley, make sure that you don't glance away long enough for the trolley to get bored of being an inanimate object, and suddenly go all animated.

In my experience, the trolley will roll towards you whilst your attention is elsewhere, hit the back of your leg, and cause you to fall onto the trolley. This fall will be assisted by the weight of the box of tiles, which you'll need to keep clutched to you like a newborn for fear of them breaking. I've found that while all this is going on, your partner will be unable to do anything but watch... with eyes wide and barely-suppressed amusement. Their laughter begins when you land on your arse on the trolley. Hmph.

On being White Van Man, howsoever fleetingly

Driving a hired van to take unwanted furniture and rubble to the local tip - I'm sorry, I mean Re-use and Re-Cycle Centre - is, for the vast majority of men, a very exciting event.

Perched above the normal-sized vehicles, your lofty throne makes you look and feel like King of the dual carriageway. Enjoy it, but don't get too blase about your new-found status, for pride comes before a fall (and you can easily fall out if you're not careful when dismounting). Following what happened to me the other day, I make two recommendations about how to conduct yourself, so you don't fall from grace even remotely as swiftly as I did.

Recommendation 1: When driving a transit van, don't look in the rear view mirror. There isn't one. Use the side mirrors instead. Mind you, when you're reversing, pedestrians will probably take the opportunity to walk across the back of the van - that is, the blind spot between the mirrors' visible spots. So, I recommend you stick the hazard lights on, and whenever you're about to reverse, give it an extra 15 seconds' wait to make sure it really is clear. I didn't hit anyone, but from the way people were keen to leap behind the van every time I even thought about reversing, I can only assume there was a puddle behind my vehicle and pedestrians were intent on using their entire bodies to impersonate Sir Walter Raleigh's cloak. So, look, and then wait. And then think about moving.

Recommendation 2: When you're driving a rented van, take a moment to ascertain the height of the van before you go anywhere. This moment of research may seem like a waste of time, but it will in fact help you to avoid a close - some might even say intimate - encounter with a Maximum Headroom sign as you drive into a supermarket car park. If, however, you do what I did, and ask "hmm, are we going to get under that bar, do you think?" before hearing a very loud THUNK overhead, make sure you've paid for the full insurance cover on the van so you don't have to pay the excess. God bless you, Mastercover Plus.

... and there endeth the lessons. Well, the lessons that can be learned from my recent experiences. On the basis of my past performance in relation to lessons - both those within the classroom and elsewhere - it's debatable whether I'll actually learn anything, but if nothing else, I like to think that this post shows that I'm at least aware of my mistakes.

All the better, of course, to repeat them, with added stupidity.

*There is, I appreciate, the possibility that this is overstating it a bit. But as my sister once said, "Oh, everyone always exaggerates everything".

The Last Time I Saw Someone All Over BBC Continuing Drama Like This, It Was Slater Week

In amongst a crowd of rowdy hooligans in a pub the other day (yes, they were writers), I met Paul Campbell. Paul seemed a friendly chap, and he's also rather prolific and successful on the writing front.

How successful, you ask? Well, tonight on BBC1, he has not one, but two programmes being shown with his name in the Written By credit - and what's more, they're straight after each other, making for a full 90 minutes of prime-time schedule that's sprung from his words.

Crikey.

If we're going to split hairs, though, there will be one of those questionable 90-second 'news updates' between the two programmes, but I wouldn't be entirely surprised if Paul finds some way to work himself into the events of the day, as he was muttering darkly about streaking across Parliament Square to ensure the news coverage.

Oh, all right, I made that last bit up; but if you are watching TV in Blighty tonight, why not have a look at one of (or even both of) the programmes Paul's written? He wrote tonight's EastEnders (7.30pm) and Holby City (8pm).

As I say, he's a thoroughly friendly chap, and it's always good to see the decent sorts doing well, innit?

As Volume Often Trumps Reason, Emotion Can Overwhelm Diction

When I was a long-haired lout of a student (as opposed to my current long-haired fop status), the Cocteau Twins were very popular amongst the NUS/NME fraternity.

I don't know if you remember the group, but they were - like the Thompson Twins - comprised of more than two members, and were not twins. Anyway, one of the things which made them rather distinctive was the way that singer Elizabeth Frazer would sings lyrics in a fashion which made them almost impossible to understand; like a radio tuning in and out, there were flashes of clarity, when you could make out several words in a line (sometimes even consecutive words), but a lot of the time it was as if she was speaking in tongues.

It was, nonetheless, quite effective, and it was certainly pretty popular. I was reminded of this style of singing the other day when I heard, on the radio, the Leona Lewis cover version of the Snow Patrol song Run, where the vocal performance seems to waver in and out of coherence.

For instance, I know that the chorus goes pretty much like this:

Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear

But when Leona sings it, and blurs one word into another and then on into another, I hear something more like:

Liar, Liar
Andy you have my toys
Evey nifoo cannar ear mavoy
Arby rarby sardoo dear

...It's probably just my contrary and snarky streak that hears it that way, of course, but on the other hand it could mean that we should dismiss 80s-style synth-pop as the next big thing, and look to glossolalia as the way of the future.

If so, it's probably for the best that Smash Hits is no longer a going concern, as it would have been a nightmare trying to reproduce songwords, especially in these days of Spellcheck.

Speaking of things religious and music-related, is it just me, or does the genuine group The Priests look alarmingly like a storyline from Father Ted?

And I Didn't Even Refer To The Big Brother Robot Incident... Oh.

Between the endless lingering shots of Danielle Bux on ITV's Hell's Kitchen the other night, I was struck by how, in a few year's time, Bruce Grobelaar will look alarmingly like George Galloway MP.

Although, now I think about it, I may well mean that the other way round.

Ironically It's Probably More Articulately Written Than The Initial Allegations

I haven't seen this sort of response before, so I thought I'd draw it to your attention: Scarlett Johansson responds to recent press allegations about her weight loss.

Hmm, I've been posting a lot of links this week, haven't I ? Still, it probably comes as a nice break from my usual nonsense.

Appropriate Really, Given The High Regard In Which People Hold The Wire

As well as the scripts for three episodes, The Wire Bible is now available online.

(I'm as yet un-evangelical about the programme, having only seen a handful of episodes; by the way, BBC, if you're going to put a show on every night, how about putting it on at the same time so people who don't have Sky+ [people who might have, for example, got a freeview box in line with the BBC's suggestions that people get ready for the digital switchover] can watch it? Just a thought.)

He's Only A 'Mad Scientist' Insofar As He Gets Angry When People Make Unsubstantiated Claims Or Use Pseudo-Scientific Talk. And Who Can Blame Him?

There's an idiot of my acquaintance who claims to be able to heal people by waving his hands around them whilst they stand up.

He tried it on me once, and confidently told me that I had some back pain, which I told him was not the case, and cheerfully asked him why he'd missed the fact I had a blinding near-migraine headache which was rendering me half-blind in one eye. Hmph. He also claims to be able to heal people over the phone, so he doesn't even need to be in the same place as them. I don't know if he's genuinely deluded or lying to extract money from the unwary, but I think that on any reasonable assessment of, y'know, facts, it's pretty clear what he's saying isn't true.

Mind you, I wouldn't want you to think that I'm equating belief in such matters with idiocy - he's an idiot in many other regards, but as that rather strays into personal stuff I needn't share here, I won't go into any more details; suffice to say people who know me well, and of some of the events of the past five years, will know who I'm talking about.

Anyway, as hot is matched by cold and day is twinned with night, so such idiocy is balanced by intelligence; nature, they say, abhors a vacuum, and I guess it also dislikes a prevalence of empty brains, for there are people in the world who are very happily married to the accumulation of knowledge through verifiable experimentation and the accretion of provable facts.

Such a person is Ben Goldacre.

Ben - and I'll call him that so he doesn't sound like a Bond villain - writes on the subject of Bad Science in various newspapers and his blog of that title, and is frequently a clear voice of sense in an area which is all too often (and, it seems, all too easily) rendered indistinct and vague by all sorts of new-agey woo-woo. If you haven't visited his blog before, I recommend a look.

And it's because of a recent update to his blog that I'm posting; some time ago, Ben suggested it wasn't right that vitamin-pill entrepreneur Matthias Rath was taking out adverts denouncing the use of AIDS drugs in South Africa, and promoting his vitamin pills at the same time. Mr Rath took umbrage with this, and sued Ben and the paper that his comments were published in, claiming libel. The case went on for over twelve months, until Mr Rath withdrew the case - but by this time the costs involved in fighting the action were around half a million pounds. Steps are being taken to recover this money, but in the meantime, the removal of the legal action means that Ben's free to add his chapter on Rath to his book - also called Bad Science - but in order to get the information 'out there' to as many people as possible, he's also put the entire chapter on the web.

You can find it as a PDF here or, if you don't have Adobe Reader, it's available as an MS Word document here.

I'm ashamed to admit that, whilst I've always enjoyed his blog and print work (and he came over well on some TV consumer-thing I saw him in the other week), I don't yet own a copy of Ben's book. Methinks I should set about remedying that...

Free Doctor Who Episode On iTunes

You need to have an iTunes account and be over 13 years old, but if that applies to you and you'd like to download a free copy of the episode Last Of The Time Lords, then click here.

Offer ends on Monday 20th April, and is something to do with the Radio Times, I think. I have to say, you don't get that quality of freebie with TV Quick.

On The Bus, With A Student Pass

Perhaps it's the fact that they're both would-be lotharios, but I feel that Jay of The Inbetweeners (played by James Buckley) looks rather like a young version of Jack from On The Buses, as played by Bob Grant.

Just me, then? Ah well.

Anyway, The Inbetweeners is a horribly accurate depiction of male teenagers, and very funny as a result. Have a look at it by following the link above - all the episodes are, I think, free to download or stream from Channel 4's 4OnDemand service, so you can see if you like it for nought pee.

How To Annoy People - Lesson The Third

People who try to disguise the fact they're requesting something from you by mangling verbs into nouns
They say: "I know it's a big ask..."
You say: "That's okay, because it's matched by a small reply - No."

(Yes, it's a short lesson, but it's a Bank Holiday, so I'm letting you out of class early. Go and have some fun.)

Twin Peaks Season Three: The Comic

I keep threatening to explain why I love Twin Peaks above almost all other TV, but never seem to get round to it. And this, you'll be unsurprised to read, is another of those occasions.

However, for those of you who've watched the show, there's an interesting item to be found here. It's an interview with Matt Haley, who was lined up to be the artist on a comic continuation of the story. Yes, I know, I'd never heard of it either, but it's an interesting tale of a nearly-was, and from the look of Matt's art (an example of which is attached to this post), he would have been a good choice of artist.

So, worth clicking on that link, I'd say. And one day, I promise, I'll post about why I consider Twin Peaks to be so good, and important. Maybe I should make it a whole series of posts, in fact.

Oh yes, the world is holding its breath as it waits for my ill-informed comments about a long-cancelled TV show, no question about that.

With This Scent, You Too Can Woo Suspiciously Humanoid Females Of Various Alien Species. As Kirk Might Say, "...Oh My".

So then, join me in being slightly bemused by the forthcoming Star Trek fragrances.

Pictured are the two aimed at men, Tiberius, which will enable you to shout the word "Khan" with startling passion, and - more amusingly to my mind - Red Shirt, because (and I quote) "Tomorrow may never come". For the ladies, and not pictured (but you can find out more about it at the link), there's a fragrance named after a Vulcan mating ritual, which I can only hope is a bit more alluring than it sounds.

Still, as one who frequents comic shops and other purveyors of TV and Film merchandise, it's nice to see someone's - well, if not necessarily conceding that some hardcore Trek fans can be a bit on the whiffy side, at least addressing the possibility. And in a collectible fashion, no less.

Forget warp drives, that's what I call progress.

Bobby Mack's In Town. No, Not Billy Mack From Love Actually.

I'll be honest, I wasn't entirely convinced by Robert McKee's Story.

It explains itself well as it goes along, and gives good examples and the like, but at the end of it all I just felt slightly overwhelmed by the almost algorithmic charts and equations involved, and something about it didn't quite sit right with me. It's entirely possible that I lost the thread somewhere along the way, and that I'm resenting the theory for my lack of understanding, but it could just be that it's a matter of horses for courses, every particular writer having son gout, and all that.

So anyway, I don't quite adhere to McKee's approach, but I certainly couldn't discount it either - a lot of people are big fans, and if nothing else, he's passionate about trying to discern what makes some stories work and others flounder - so it's only right that I point out that he's in the UK - specifically London - next week, doing some of his seminars; one on Love Stories, and then his famous Story Seminar.

It's short notice, yes, but I only found out myself last night, and I'm breaking away from my hot cross buns (not a euphemism) to post this, so it's as fast as I could letcha know, all right?

Good.

Well, now we've got that settled, this is the link you need to click for more details.

And I note one level of the tickets entitles you to a free copy of Final Draft - however, as people who buy it from authorised suppliers are eligible for a free copy of the new version which is due in May, you might want to make sure that, if you get it this way, you'll also be entitled to the free upgrade.

(On which theme, I'll be interested to see what people think of FD v8 when it comes out; I've been using Celtx and Word and waiting to hear that FD's new version is more readily compatible with Vista.)

First Album Cover Photo Shoot? Let's Make It Something Lively And Eye-Catching Which Will Appeal To As Wide An Audience As Possible, Right?

Oh dear.

Could we get a coffee for Mr Quigg, please? Or some Red Bull?

Ah sod it, get a man with a pointy stick.

And Even If It Comes In At Less Than A Thousand, At Least It Spares You From My Usual Verbosity

A picture, apparently, is worth a thousand words, so on that basis, I thought I ought to save words today and instead point you towards the online gallery for the Natural History Museum Wildlife Photographer Of The Year; there are some startling (in the best sense) photos to be seen in this year's competition, and last year's entries aren't exactly shabby either.

You can have a look by clicking here.

Protocol Has Clearly Changed - Better Keep Russell Brand Away From Her Majesty

1992 : Australian Premier Paul Keating touches the Queen, and is branded "The Lizard Of Oz" by the British media.










2000: Australian Prime Minister John Howard is accused of touching the Queen during a royal visit. Howard's office issues a statement denying "any contact whatsoever".









2009: Michelle Obama hugs the Queen during the G20 visit. The Queen appears to hug her back.












Perhaps it's a question of changing times and the softened role of the monarchy, but I know one thing: if you're going to touch QE2, make sure you're not a male Australian politician.

My Brother And I Once Got A Bit Lost In New York. A Woman Approached Us, Carrying Some Liquid Soap. "She's Going To Wash Us To Death," My Brother Said

Consider, if you will, the following; the first two are taken from Twin Peaks, and are spoken by Moriarty-like villain Windom Earle, and the third quote is from Rupert Giles in Buffy The Vampire Slayer:

Earle:
"...A place of almost unimaginable power, chock full of dark forces and vicious secrets. No prayers dare enter this frightful maw for sprits there care not for good deeds or priestly implications. They are likely to rip the flesh from your bones then greet you with a happy "good day". And of the highest, these spirits in this hidden land of unmuffeled screams and broken hearts offer up a power so vast that its bearer might reorder the Earth, to his liking. Now this place is called the Black Lodge..."
[2x19]

Earle:
"...These evil sorcerers, dugpas, they call them, cultivate evil for the sake of evil and nothing else. They express themselves in darkness for darkness, without leavening motive. This ardent purity has allowed them to access a secret place of great power, where the cultivation of evil proceeds in exponential fashion. And with it, the furtherance of evil's resulting power. These are not fairy tales, or myths. This place of power is tangible, and as such, can be found, entered, and perhaps, utilized in some fashion. The dugpas have many names for it, but chief among them is the Black Lodge..."
[2x20]

Giles:
"...The Spanish who first settled here called it 'Boca del Infierno'. Roughly translated, 'Hellmouth'. It's a sort of, um, portal between this reality and the next."
[1x2]

The Lodges in Twin Peaks owe a lot to the thinking of the Theosophists, granted, but I think it's a fairly common idea that places can become in some way batteries for bad feelings, or centres of negativity.

I guess we've all known of places which somehow have a 'bad vibe', whether it's a case of turning a corner in an unfamiliar area and getting a 'bad feeling', or the many reports of places that migrating birds avoid and the like. I suspect it's more prevalent in fiction than reality (though tales of the Amityville House arguably straddle both those camps), but I somehow find the idea that a location can, in itself, be 'bad' and bring nothing but trouble for anyone who strays there, very interesting.

And if nothing else, it certainly explains the lives of the residents of Albert Square.

Today's picture, incidentally, is by Gustave Dore, and is called The Gates Of Hell. Good artist, I think you'd agree.

Easy Target, Easy Like Sunday Morning...

Obviously, the adverts for plates and dolls and figurines in the Sunday newspaper colour magazines are always good for a laugh, but sometimes they surprise even me.

Today, I spy an advert for this delightful Diana figurine from the Bradford group.

The description says "A breathtaking vision of style and grace, Princess Diana melted the hearts of millions around the globe. With her radiant beauty, engaging personality and stunning sense of style, Diana captivates the imaginations of people from all walks of life. And ten years after her passing, she’s still considered to be one of the most beloved women in the world."

Which is all very well and good, but until this morning, I didn't realise she was nineteen feet tall.

Script Frenzy 2009

It's a few days into this year's round of ScriptFrenzy.

You may have heard of this before - rather like a National Novel Writing Month for screenplays, the idea is to try to write 100 pages in screenplay form by the end of April. It doesn't have to be one screenplay, and I think you can submit 100 pages out of a longer script as long as you've written them during April. I say 'submit' but it's not as if there's some stern judging panel or anything like that - it's all in fun, and very much works on an honesty system, though I think you can submit your chunk of pages in a scrambled form to validate your page count. As for prizes, I think you can download certificates or icons or what have you, but I think the idea is more to feel the satisfaction of having done a healthy chunk of writing.

Anyway, is anybody out there having a go at this? I know it's already underway, but it seems quite fun, and it could be an amusing spur for me to get on with a script which I've probably been thinking about for too long...

Oh, and did I mention that it's free of charge to take part? I didn't? Well, it is.

Oh My Goodness Me

Perhaps a long time after everyone else in the world, I only found this today, but I have to share.

Don't be fooled by the opening bit, it's not just the Shat sitting and 'singing'... well, not alone, anyway.

He brings friends.



Remarkable, I think you'll agree.

In Film Terms, It Equates To Some Magnificent Ambersons Footage Being Found

The best part of two decades ago, the comic Big Numbers was launched. As you can see from the cover here, it was co-created by Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz.

In a deliberate move away from the usual comic tendency towards superheroes (okay, more usual then than it is now, but it's still predominant), Big Numbers was intended to be a 12-issue series featuring pretty much everyday people in the fictional midlands town of Hampton. I say 'intended' because only two issues were ever published.

After two issues, Bill Sienkiewicz decided not to continue with the series, and the plan was for his assistant, Al Columbia, to take up the artistic reins, but for whatever reason (and in the comic world, a number of myths about this have developed in the absence of facts), Al was unable to do so.

And so that was where things have been since about 1990, when issue two was published... until this week, when it seems a photocopy of issue three turned up on eBay, and one lucky bidder not only bought it, but was kind enough to (with Alan Moore's permission) post it on the internet for all to see.

If it's some kind of hoax (and the post date is before April Fool's Day), I have to say it's a pretty darn convincing one; the style of the story, the dialogue and certainly the artwork look very much like the real thing, so if you ever read Big Numbers, or have heard about it, or heck, just want to see a comic by two very talented comic creators, well then hie thee over to the link above. Incidentally, don't be put off by the fact they're scans of a photocopy; the scans are very high resolution.

And if this rather niche comic-related post isn't your thing - abnormal service will be resumed in the next post, honest.

Les Poissons D'Avril

Quite nicely done ads for fake items, though I suspect the links may die at midday...

iREMember Dream Recorder

SatNav Shoes

Powdered Beer

(I have no affiliation with Firebox, though I've ordered from them several times and have always been happy with the results.)