We Interrupt The Scheduled Internet To Bring You A Newsflash

Sorry if this frankly shocking, and very important, story ruins your Sunday afternoon, but this story really does need as much coverage as possible, so I felt almost compelled to share it.

Anyhow, brace yourself: this is the News.



>Sigh<

Order Early For Halloween - Or, Even Better, Not At All

Now, I'll freely admit that being a chap of a certain age means that the release dates of the original Star Wars films coincided with certain ages, and thus stages, in my life; which means that I can understand the gist of the titular plotline in the Friends episode, The One with the Princess Leia Fantasy.

That said, I still find myself slightly worried by the existence of this.

And then even more worried by the fact you can also buy this.

Still, I can only hope anyone willing to buy and wear the items in question is likely to do us all a favour, and confine the wearing - and (shudder) anything that may accompany or follow it - to the privacy of their own homes. Due to the design, you'd be unlikely to go outside wearing them, I guess - one'd probably be too hot, and the other too cold. Thankfully.

I was alerted to the existence of these items, as I so often am when it comes to pop culture tat, by Mike Sterling, whose blog I heartily recommend. 'Tis always good for a laugh.

The Dead-Headed League

Offer of the week from the always-interesting DVD firm Network is One Summer, a series from 1983 which was written by Willy Russell and stars - as you can see from the picture - a young David Morrissey.

I'll be honest : I don't know anything at all about the series (though it's clearly got a pretty good pedigree) - what really caught my attention was the quote from the Daily Mirror which is reproduced at the bottom of the DVD cover:

"David Morrissey and Spencer Leigh are most beguiling."

I'm more than willing to believe this is the case, but it's almost impossible to imagine this sort of turn of phrase appearing in a TV review in the Mirror nowadays, isn't it ?

Assuming that quote's contemporaneous with the series's original broadcast date, I find myself somewhat amazed that in 26 years, the Mirror's writing style has changed from sounding like a character from one of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories to... well, sounding how I suspect characters will sound in Guy Ritchie's forthcoming Sherlock Holmes film*.

*This comment is, I realise, the very embodiment of prejudice; however, the idea of a re-imagining of the Holmes canon really does smack of a paucity of originality. Intead of 're-imagining' or otherwise riding the creative coat-tails, how about 'creating', or even plain old 'imagining' new characters?

In Which I Demonstrate How I Will Cheerfully Accept A Compliment, Even If It's Not Even Remotely True

I was at a wedding last weekend. Well, strictly speaking it was a 'civil partnership celebration', but unlike the state of California, I don't count same-sex couples as second-class citizens, so as far as I'm concerned it was a wedding.

Anyway, I'd made a bit of an effort for the occasion, and was wearing a new jacket-n-trouser-combo, so I was quite pleased when another guest told me I looked like someone famous.
"Really?" I asked, genuinely surprised.
"Yes," he said. "That chap from TV... Patrick something... Patrick Macnee."

I was amused by this, and images of the ever-debonair Macnee as John Steed in The Avengers ran through my mind.

"No, hang on, not Macnee," he said. "Patrick... um..."
As he tried to recall the right name, I became pretty sure it was more likely to turn out to be Patrick Moore from The Sky At Night than Patrick Dempsey from Grey's Anatomy.
"That's it!" he said. "Patrick McGoohan!"

As an admirer of The Prisoner, this comparison also amused me (as did the fact that both chaps did some sterling work during what one might see as a classic age of British TV).

"I don't really see it," Mrs Soanes said to me a bit later that evening, and I'm afraid I have to agree with her. Not only is it slightly odd that someone might mistake Mr Macnee for Mr McGoohan, it's also very hard to see many points of similarity between me and either of these two chaps.

Mind you, given that McGoohan was very sharply dressed much of the time in Danger Man and The Prisoner and was reportedly one of the first actors approached to play James Bond onscreen, and that Macnee in The Avengers is seen as sartorially very dapper to this very day, I am more than happy to assume the chap's comments were related to the fact that I was wearing smart clothing.

The moral of this post? Like so many of us, I am more than happy when (to paraphrase A Midsummer Night's Dream) compliments aimed at me, and truth, keep little company.

All Things Considered, It's Probably Best Not To Read This Whilst Eating

In recent years, rather like M'chum Jed, , my metabolism has slowed down, and so I'm now the not-entirely-proud owner of a bit of a belly.

Now, it's nothing too excessive (though it usually slightly surprises people who've known me for years, as historically I've tended to the scrawny end of things), and I'm all too aware that if I want to shed it - I mean really want to shed it - then all I have to do is to eat less and move more (running's usually the best form of exercise for me, but we all have our preferences). It's pretty straightforward for me, really, though I'm aware there are many people who don't necessarily lose weight they want to lose with such a linear element of causation.

And so, clustering the shelves of your local pharmacy, there are a number of products which are advertised as helping you lose weight, and I'm sure that many of them live up to their claims. However, slighty less advertised are some of the side effects, and of course that's what I want to talk about here.

A couple of products on the market (such as Formaline and Alli) act in an interesting way on the digestive system; they stop fat binding in the usual way within the gut, so that it doesn't hang around, and instead of loitering in the stomach area, it moves on, as undigested fat, through the colon and out into the sunlight.

All very well and good (if you ignore the messing-with-the-natural-order side of things, that is), but it seems that products of this nature are not without side effects. Or, as the website for Alli prefers to call them, "treatment effects". What kind of side effects, you may be wondering? Have some examples:

• Gas with oily spotting
• Loose stools
• More frequent stools that may be hard to control

Is that nice? I don't think so. Surely the risk of soiling yourself in public is a deal-breaker? Well, if it's not, here's Alli's suggestion on how to incorporate the new and ever-present risk of plop leakage into your life:

"You may feel an urgent need to go to the bathroom. Until you have a sense of any treatment effects, it's probably a smart idea to wear dark pants, and bring a change of clothes with you to work."

Let me just repeat that, with emphasis: if you take Alli, "it's probably a smart idea to wear dark pants, and bring a change of clothes with you to work."

Sweet fancy Moses! If it's a choice between being 'that slightly tubby chap' or being 'that 38-year-old guy who smells like his nappy needs changing', I know which I'd choose.

Just in case you think I'm making this up, here's the link to the page where Alli detail the side - er, treatment effects of their product. I like the way they try to hide the more soggy possibilities amongst other, more bearable, effects. The textual equivalent of wearing dark trousers when you've shat yourself, as it were.

You have been reading the words of John Soanes, sophisticate and high-falutin' fop about town. Thank you and good day.

Was It Debussy Or Stravinsky Who Said That Music Occurred In The Spaces Between The Notes?

Consider, if you will, the following lyrics from the recent chart-topping Black Eyed Peas song, Boom Boom Pow:

I'm so 3008
You so 2000 and late
I got that boom, boom, boom
That future boom, boom, boom
Let me get it now

Boom boom boom, gotta get-get
Boom boom boom, gotta get-get
Boom boom boom, gotta get-get
Boom boom boom, gotta get-get

Boom boom boom, now
Boom boom boom, now
Boom boom pow
Boom boom pow

Poetry, I'm sure you'd agree. However, join with me in a flashback to June 2007, the first broadcast of a Flight Of The Conchords episode containing a song featuring the following lyrics:

See ya shaking that boom boom
Who?
See ya looking at my boom boom
What?
You want some boom boom
It's clear it's boom some boom boom ahh

Let me buy you a boom boom
When?
You order a fancy boom
Who?
You like boom, I like boom
Enough small boom lets boom the boom ahh

And that's why I find that Black Eyed Peas song laughable.

Well, that's the main reason, anyway.

Light Content, Yes, But It Is A Bank Holiday And You're Lucky I'm Here At All When I Could Be Sat In Traffic On the M25 Like So Many Others

Rooting through some old CD boxes this morning, I found my much-played copy of Electronic's Getting Away With It, and was driven to wonder the following:

Am I utterly delusional, or is that one of the most simple yet elegant record cover designs of all time?

Review: 'High Crimes' by Michael Kodas

My claim in the profile to the right about climbing mountains isn't an idle one (honest), and so I found this book, detailing some of the not-so-ethical behaviour on Mount Everest, was very interesting. And, at times, unsettling.

Michael Kodas tells the story of his own ill-fated attempt to summit Everest from the Tibetan side, and contrasts it with the death of Nils Antezana, a 69-year-old doctor who died whilst descending on the Nepalese side of the mountain. Whilst Kodas's attempt floundered due to conflicts within the assembled team, Antezana died alone on the mountain after summiting but being left to descend, alone, by his guide.

These two stories are well told and quite unnerving, but there are other snippets as well - one climber was forced to rappel down one of the routes, and it was only by chance that he looked over his shoulder and realised that the (fixed) rope he was descending had, for no apparent reason, been cut off; had he not turned to look, he would have fallen to his death. Other climbers find their tents or equipment have been stolen as they ascend to higher camps on Everest.

There's some good analysis of why 2006 saw so many deaths on Everest, and the chilling fact that almost anyone can claim to be a 'guide' and charge tens of thousands of pounds to lead you up Everest, even if they've had limited - or next to no - experience of guiding.

The book sometimes strays from the central narratives a bit, though it only tends to do this when recounting something else of interest or which adds to the background, so I felt this could be forgiven. The writing style is good and straightforward, and thankfully it generally avoids giving lines of dialogue when no witnesses were to hand, or speculating wildly about events. There's a lot of referencing and quoting from eyewitnesses, and a bibliography and index to back all this up.

So, if you're interested in Everest, or climbing generally, this is a solid account of an aspect of the mountain which doesn't tend to get much coverage. I was lucky enough to be given a copy of the hardback (thanks, Mrs Wife!), but the paperback's out in November, so you could save your recession-hit pennies until then. Either way, I recommend it.

You! Yes, You! I'm Asking You A Question! Speak Up!

When you're as old and jaded as I am, you gradually come to accept that there are certain events on TV programmes and in films that just don't happen.

The example I usually turn to is that of the 'dance-off' amongst disagreeing groups of people, which I have never ever ever seen anything even vaguely approximating, actually taking place out there on the streets. Lord knows I'd like it if people were more willing to settle their ideological differences by busting some funky moves on a street corner by a fire hydrant with a boom box, but unfortunately people seem more keen to use knives and guns and bombs than diplomacy or a good old-fashioned groovin'. Sigh.

Anyway, one thing which shows up in films and on TV quite a bit - and which is certainly more easy to replicate in the real world - is that of someone (usually a woman) throwing a glass of wine in the face of someone else (usually a man who's been behaving like some kind of rotter). Aside from a story I vaguely recall from the 1980s about Anna Ford chucking wine at a TV executive who'd fired her or otherwise acted the cad in a professional sense, I have to say that I have never seen this this in real life, so I wanted to ask : have you ever seen anyone do this?

The first person I asked in this very scientific poll was m'good lady wife, who astutely observed that many people wouldn't want to waste wine on someone they disliked that much, and would probably just throw a punch instead. I can see the logic of that.

So, can any of you report having seen a fine wine arc through the air to land on someone's mush? Perhaps a glass of Pino Grigio was flung facewards by a friend of yours, with dry-cleaning-requiring results. If so - or if the answer's emphatically NO - please let me know by posting a comment. I'm keen to know if this event actually occurs, or if, like ship captains performing marriage ceremonies, it's naught but a fiction within fiction, as it were.

The First Paragraph Of A Novel I May Yet Write

Seeing as how I haven't heard anything yet about my entry into the Guardian's
competition to write the first 150 words of a novel, and the notification date is almost past, and Laurence was kind enough to hassle me to share what I sent them, here it is.

The title of the novel was given as a springboard, so this is my first paragraph of The Letting Go...

“Life’s not about holding on,” her grandfather had once said. “It’s about the letting go.”
Years after his death, when she finally got round to sorting through his possessions, Heather realised that, in his life, he had let go of very little.
At the bottom of the fourth box, in an unmarked manila envelope, she found it: a curl-cornered black and white photograph of her grandfather, aged about twenty. With a full head of hair and an impish grin, he stood in front of a terraced house, with his arm around the shoulders of a woman who was definitely not Heather’s grandmother. And standing in front of them, scowling at the camera, a serious-looking young girl.
Her hand shaking only slightly, Heather flipped the photo over, hoping for a date or other explanation. There was a short sentence in her grandfather’s handwriting.
Don’t tell her you found this, it said.

As ever, comments are welcomed (though do bear in mind it's too late for me to make any changes which might increase my chances of winning the competition).

Review: 'Unwritten' by Mike Carey and Peter Gross

I don't often review single issues of comics here on't blog - or collected comics, for that matter - but this is a good 'un, and I thought it was worth drawing to your attention.

Unwritten is a new series published by Vertigo Comics (the 'mature' wing of DC Comics). It's written by Mike Carey and drawn by Peter Gross, and tells the story of Tommy Taylor. Taylor's father was a writer, and like A.A. Milne, wrote books featuring a character with the same name as his son. Taylor Senior has disappeared, leaving a legacy of books which bear a resemblance to - but, we are told, are more popular than - the Harry Potter series.

As the series opens, Tommy's making a fairly unsuccessful living attending conventions and making personal appearances. It's at one of these conventions that he's asked some questions by an audience member which start to suggest that Tommy may, in a way, not be as real as he might believe. Things unravel pretty quickly from there, and the first issue sets things up very promisingly. The art's good and clear, and flashy and impressive when needed, and the dialogue is - gasp - close to how people actually speak, which has to be a good thing.

So, a good comic, and the final selling point is that this first issue, which contains 32 pages of story, is on sale at the lure-you-in price of $1 (or, here in Blighty, about 75p). You can spend that on a fizzy drink, which your system will just turn into wee, so why not give this comic a read instead ? You may have to go to an actual comic shop to get it, but it's a very decent read. If nothing else, you can smile, as I did, at the opening pages and their similarity to events in the Potter books/films.

(Mini) Review : Star Trek

As you probably know, this film is the big-screen 'reboot' of the long-running series (though it's possible to interpret it as an altered history thing, given the time-travel elements). It's been getting very positive reviews, and there are all manner of background stories etc to be found elsewhere, so I won't get into that sort of stuff here, I'll just try to stick to giving you a mini-review.

Put simply, it's a lot of fun, and I recommend it highly. I have mixed feelings about the Trek franchise, liking some bits, being left cold by others, and often being frightened by the passion of its fans, but this film has a decent story, solid acting, impressive special effects, and a good balance of action scenes and character interaction. I reckon you could see it with someone who'd never seen an episode or film or even heard the names of the characters before, and they'd still have fun.

For my money, the most impressive thing the film does - and I wouldn't like to guess whether this was a conscious move away from the recent, less-successful films, but it would make sense if it was - is to invest enough time and effort into making the viewer give a damn about what's happening, as opposed to leaning on the fact that these are well-known characters and therefore you're supposed to have some pre-existing affection for them. As a result, when characters are in peril, it's dramatic within the context of the film, and not because you're expected to care because, hey, these are iconiccharacters.

So, a definite thumbs-up from me, and I've often been lukewarm about Trek.

You'll no doubt have noticed that the picture accompanying this review isn't of the film poster or the cast or whatever, but I wanted to draw a smidgin of attention to the fact that the current US Edition of Wired magazine is guest-edited by JJ Abrams, the director of the film. As well as having a number of interesting articles about mysteries and magic and the like, there's a comic strip that leads into the film, drawn by well-respected comic artist Paul Pope, and written by the film's screenwriters, which is worth a look as it provides a nice little bit of background. As I say, this is the USA edition (though the UK edition's worth checking out as well), is labelled as such with a shiny gold sticker, and can be found on the shelves of slightly-larger newsagents.

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.