Shutting up now...

Well, I said I'd shut up about it all when I reached £400, and I've just paid in the offline sponsor money, taking my total raised for Cancer Research UK to £427!

Thank you sooooo much to everyone who sponsored me. There are loads of you, but I'd especially like to thank those of you who don't even know me really, just my Twitterings. You restore my faith in humanity.

Any last minute sponsorship will be gratefully received at Craig Stevens's Fundraising Page for Run 10k. That's it. I'll never speak of this again. Probably...

NaNoWriMo!

Eep. What have I done? No sooner have I scaled the 10k mountain than I've signed myself up for another massive challenge: National Novel Writing Month, (or NaNoWriMo, for short!)

Basically the challenge is this: in November, I have to write a novel of more than 50,000 words. Ideally it should have a plot and characters and a beginning an middle and an end, but that's mostly academic. All the organizers want is 50,000 words, and it can't be the same word 50,000 times over... And then you win. Hopefully with a semblance of a novel.

So, realistically I'm looking at churning out 2,000 words a day to be anywhere near the target. Hence why I've written three blog entries today, just to remember how to write!

If you want to follow my progress, or even have a go yourself, then become my buddy!

I done it.

In case this is the only place you catch up with me, two weeks ago I Ran 10k for Cancer Research UK, at Hylands Park Chelmsford. It was a lovely sunny day, loads of people were there (about 1,400, I believe) and I did the 10k in about 1 hour 15 minutes.

Huge thanks to everyone that sponsored me. At the moment I've raised just under £400, so if you want to push me over the line, feel free. Just click on the link above! Thanks!

No More Heroes...

Who are your heroes? Are they the same as they were when you were younger, or have you outgrown them? I've been pondering this myself for a while, since Michael Jackson died. Not that Jackson was ever a hero of mine...

What is a hero? To me, a hero is a person who exhibits qualities that puts them above others in any field, be it sports, music, art or writing. When I was younger I had a few heroes, people that I respected, who I felt had a talent that lifted them up to the highest heights, who became, for want of a better phrase, gods. Sadly, I now feel that most of those people have let me down.

Let's get down to specifics. Sixteen years ago, I wrote a list of "The Gods":

1. George Lucas
2. Jean Michel Jarre
3. Jim Henson
4. Green Gartside (from Scritti Politti)
5. Jim Aparo
6. Alan Grant
7. Gene Roddenberry
8. Nik Kershaw
9. Arthur C. Clarke

(Looking back, I would probably add Terry Pratchett and Madonna to that list, but didn't at the time. Poor old Nik Kershaw has "demi-God" in brackets after his name, so he wasn't obviously totally in favour at the time.)

Anyway, looking at that list now, would I still consider them heroes? By that tag, I mean that they are still as important to me as they were then, that they haven't put a creative step wrong, that they are still, well, Gods, and not mere... people. It's harsh, but there you go.

So, 1. George Lucas. Well, it was all going so well until 1999, wasn't it? His position in the pantheon looked assured, the Special Editions of the Star Wars trilogy could be seen as an indulgence, rather than a mis-step, but then Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace came out. The fall to mortality wasn't immediate, but the creeping feeling grew that the halo had slipped... (See I Blame Rick McCallum for more details!) Mortal.

2. Jean Michel Jarre.  In 1992, one of my favourite Jarre albums, Chronologie had come out.  In 1993 I went to see him at Wembley Stadium and I thought his reputation had been sealed, but in the intervening years, he's produced few albums of such magnificence, but has been reworking his old stuff, making little "art" albums and then the appalingly bad Téo & Téa "dance" album.  I blame the fact tha he's not married to Charlotte Rampling anymore.  The woman must have been a good influence which he's now sadly missing... Mortal (though fingers crossed for the future!)

3. Jim Henson.  Untouchable.  His sad and untimely death in 1990 meant that he could no longer prove himself fallible. (Unfortunately his death proved his mortality though...) The body of work created by him in his lifetime stands firm.  His legacy, and the future worth of the Henson Organization remains to be seen. Hero.

4. Green Gartside. Just when I thought nothing would ever be heard again from Mr. Gartside, in 2006, he pulled out his best album since Cupid & Psyche '85 in the form of White Bread Black Beer, a self-produced, minimalist album of pure loveliness. Hero.

5. Jim Aparo and 6. Alan Grant. Look, I was a big comics fan in the 1990s, especially a Batman fan, so this classic artist and writer duo got included. Still like their work, but haven't read a comic in anger for nearly a decade, so I can't really say if they're still heroes. Probably. Though I'd have to veer towards Frank Miller and Alan Moore for their work on The Dark Knight Returns and The Killing Joke respectively.

7. Gene Roddenberry. The man had a vision and a commitment to get Star Trek made and to keep it going in the '80s and '90s with Star Trek: The Next Generation. His death in 1991 didn't stop the franchise, and his legacy, as proved by the huge success of J.J. Abrams' big screen reboot Star Trek this year. Hero.

8. Nik Kershaw. OK, so he's not as big a star as he was in 1984, but Mr. Kershaw keeps putting out songs of wit and intelligence on his own label, making albums such as 2001's To Be Frank and 2006's You've Got To Laugh. Hero, just for doing what he does.

9. Arthur C. Clarke. The greatest Science-Fiction writer ever. Prescient and talented and just a fantastic writer. Hero.

And Terry Pratchett.  His writing gets better and better all the time, despite a dip in the Soul Music/Hogfather years and unfortunately his Alzheimer's will probably get him before he gets a chance to make the fall from grace. Still a hero. Always a hero.

Madonna. The only woman on the list, but unfortunately now very much a mortal. Like Jackson, her heyday is well past now, but no one seems to have told her. She keeps churning out the same sub-R&B drivel, but people still seem to like it. So maybe it's just me, but she hasn't done anything good since 1998's Ray of Light (and actually, looking at the sales figures, a lot less people like it...). Mortal.

So, there you go. Most of my heroes are only still my heroes because they're dead. If I had to write such a list now, I'd definitely include Joss Whedon for his work on Buffy, Firefly/Serenity, Dr Horrible and Dollhouse and for being a funny, horribly talented genius. I'd also include John Lasseter and all the team at Pixar for neverfailing to entertain and amaze.

Funny, but all my heroes come from the creative world. No sports people and no politicians. Hmmm....

I'm running 10k for Cancer Research UK!

Yes, I've decided to do something useful for a change, I'm going to Run 10k for Cancer Research UK.

OK, now you've picked yourself up off the floor and have stopped laughing, click on the link and sponsor me. If you feel like it, you could join me. It's at Hylands Park, Chemsford on 4th October 2009, but there are other runs all around the country.

I'm aiming to raise £250, but I'd actually love to raise a hell of a lot more!

So please visit my fundraising page and give me your money!

Ta!

Friday Night Blog: Michael Jackson 1958-2009

And so the "King of Pop" is no longer with us. On the eve of a record-breaking and unprecedented 50-night residency at the O2 Arena, Michael Jackson died of a massive heart attack.

Now, while I agree that this is a terribly sad thing, I have to admit I'm totally bemused by the outpouring of grief for a man who, let's be honest, was more than a little bit, well, strange...

Certainly he was a man of prestigious talent and ability, but I think the emphasis is definitely on the word "was". He passed his peak nearly twenty years ago and since that time it's been all downhill. Yes, he was fantastic - the Thriller and Bad albums are solid-gold classics, and the work he did with his brothers in the Jackson Five are among Motown's greatest treasures. But that was then. In the last two decades, all we've really had are glimmers of a star that burned out long ago - a couple of greatest hits collections and an under-performing "comeback" album.

The O2 would have been the last-chance saloon for a man besieged by rumour, burdened with crippling debts, a man more infamous than famous in the last few years.

The rumours, and eventual confirmation, of his death nearly broke the internet. Google thought it was under siege as thousands of people searched for "Michael Jackson". Twitter crashed (again) and numerous gossip websites went off-line for periods. If nothing else, his death has created more interest in him than has been seen for ages.

Jackson was a man who fascinated and intriuged us all. His side-show lifestyle demonstrated an eccentricity that beggared belief - if your average person tried to live the way Jackson did then they would probably have been sectioned long ago! The man is obviously not totally to blame for the way he was - his unnatural upbringing was a major factor in this and a life lived in the public glare is bound to send you a bit weird.

I feel truly sad for the loss of one of the planet's greatest entertainers, but I'm amazed and appalled by the mass grief that has been reported in the media. I don't believe that "the music died". I can't join in the celebration of his music, because I've never bought any of it, and don't want to (especially if people are trying to get the dire "Man in the Mirror" into the charts again (come on, there are dozens of Jackson songs that are infinitely better...) The upside is that maybe, just maybe, his children have got a better chance of a "normal" childhood without the presence of their father.

If he is truly dead... (The cynical part of my brain thinks this could be an elaborate ruse to escape from his debts and his freakish lifestyle, and he's actaully on his way to a place somewhere in Saudi...)

Anyway, Mr Michael Jackson. You were a unique person, and a truly talented individual. We salute you and your loss is a thing of great sadness. Rest in peace.

Friday Night Blog: Here we go again!

So, Big Brother 10 launched yesterday, with probably the most ethnically diverse bunch of freaks, I mean housemates (except they're not housemates yet...), ever assembled in the house in Elstree.

So, who have we got this year? Well, amongst others, there's Angel, a 35-year old boxer from Russia (and, gasp, she's a woman...); there's Beinazir, a Muslim Londoner of Pakistani origin; Rodrigo, a student from Brazil; Siavash, a flamboyant events organizer from Iran and Sree, a business student from India. Add to them the usual mix of gay men, glamour models, upper-class twits and you've fairly much got it all.

As I said, none of them were automatically housemates, and they have to become official housemates one way or another. Until then, they have to sleep on the floor in the lounge, and only have access to the garden. No kitchen. No bedrooms. No hot water.

Then Big Brother asked someone to go to the diary room, and Rodrigo stepped up. He was told that in order to become a housemate, he would have to convince another contestant to let him shave their eyebrows and then draw glasses and a curly moustache on them within four minutes. After the usual shouting over each other, and Rodrigo's broken English, Noirin (25, Retail Manager from Dublin), volunteered, and got herself a place as a housemate too.

What happens next is anyone's guess. And whether I keep watching is another thing. I gave up last year, but loved Celebrity Big Brother at the beginning of this year. We shall see...

For up-to-the-minute news, go to Channel4.com/BigBrother

Friday Night Blog: Knight Rider

So for the last few weeks, viewers of the Sci-Fi channel have been able to catch a couple of new shows, one being Joss Whedon's Dollhouse (more on that when I've actually watched it...), and the other is the new version of Knight Rider.

Knight Rider was a major part of my childhood, watching David Hasselhoff defeating baddies and helping single mothers weekly, with the help of his super-powered Trans Am car, KITT. I loved the show, I wanted KITT (why were the toys all a little bit, well, rubbish?) and just thought it was the bees knees (along with Airwolf of course!

The original show ran for four years from 1982, eventually trailing off into a dire fourth season (Super Pursuit Mode?) before the plug was pulled. The concept flared up a few times over the years (Knight Rider 2000, Knight Rider 2010 and Team Knight Rider) but nothing really caught on.

A new pilot was made and aired last February, featuring a new car, the Knight Industries 3000 (voiced by Val Kilmer), and a new hero, the son of Michael Knight, Mike Traceur (played by Justin Bruening). David Hasselhoff appeared in a cameo, handing the torch onto his son, but looking very creaky! This went down quite well in the US, and prompted a new series to be commissioned.

Some changes were made between the pilot and the series - more action was included, a whole base for KITT was created, taking it away from the "one man can make a difference" of the original, to "one man, one woman, lots of tech people and a couple of shifty feds can make a bit of a difference". KITT was upgraded slightly, and Mike Traceur "died" because a lot of people knew who he was from his black ops days in and after Iraq, and he became, guess what? Michael Knight!

So, is it any good? Well, Bruening is a likeable lead, and is easily supported and matched by his co-star Deanna Russo, who plays Sarah Graiman, nano-technology specialist, daughter of KITT's creator, Charles Graiman (Bruce Davison), and also looks damn fine in a bikini (it's part of one of the plots, OK?!)

The plots are OK - lightweight and fun and mustn't be taken too seriously. If you compare them to some of the original series scripts, then they stand up well. Battlestar Galactica they ain't. Having all the tech people and the feds around the "KITT cave" kind of distract from the original mission. Half the time, when KITT goes wrong, then it's down to the techies to fix him - the original could have done it himself.

And as for KITT himself, well, he's now a Mustang, but he's still pretty cool. The original scanner has been replaced by a double strip, and thankfully they've replaced the "woo-woo" sound it made in the original (it was missing in the pilot). Turbo boost didn't appear in the pilot, but it does in the series. The only trouble with it now is that KITT apparently has to transform himself into "Attack Mode" to do it. This means that he has to "grow" new spoilers, wings, and a great big air intake on his bonnet, bringing horrible echoes of the aforementioned Super Pursuit Mode. With the neon lights, it looks like Westwood has pimped my KITT. It's horrible.

You see, another of KITT's gimmicks is that he's able to transform himself into other cars, using some nano-technology or something. For example, he can change colour or become a Ford F-150 pick-up truck. This is all well, if a bit implausible, but in the first episode of the series, Traceur jumps into the back of KITT in pick-up mode with another man. KITT then transforms himself around them, so that they end up in the front seats of the Mustang-KITT. Hmmm.

All in all, it's quite an enjoyable series. I've read that it gets rebooted halfway through the first series, bringing it back more to the "one man" mission, and then I think it got cancelled. Ho hum. Still, it's quite a fun hour to spend if you want to take your brain off the hook.

And as for the theme music? Desecration is the word that springs to mind...

(Thanks to The Knight Rider Archive for all the info!)

Friday Night Blog: Star Trek

And so the future begins again.... J.J. Abrams, the man who brought us Lost and Cloverfield and Alias gets his hands on Paramount's crown jewels, and delivers a new Star Trek, not exactly for a new generation, as he's rebooted the original Kirk and Spock series, rather than creating a new crew.

In a time-twisting plotline that rewrites history, Abrams effectively wipes Starfleet's future history, from the moment his protagonist, the Romulan Nero, arrives from the future (around Picard's time), destroys the USS Kelvin, and kills the father of the still-being-born Jim Kirk. The future of Star Trek - all the films, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager all now exist down another leg of the trousers of time. The only thing that remains intact is the future Spock (who also travelled back to try to stop Nero) and the prequel series Enterprise.

Got that? Good.

So is it any good? Well by rebooting the series that means we have to have new actors playing the iconic roles. This is tricky, because the actors have to give us the essence of the characters, without sinking into parody.

Karl Urban gives us a brilliant McCoy, all gruff and grumpy and sarcastic, Chris Pine actually manages to feel like Kirk, while avoiding Shatner's stilted delivery, and Zachary Quinto gives a brilliant performance as Spock, once you can get over the fact that he's not still playing Sylar from Heroes. You half expect him to raise a finger to Kirk's forehead and start slicing....

The other crew members remain much as they were, generally character-less, except they all seem to be geniuses at something or other. For example, Anton Yelchin's Chekov (with his over-the-top accent - Walter Koenig's was dodgy, but this is just too much) is suddenly a transporter expert, being able to lock onto fast-falling objects. The usual Trek genius, Scotty (played by Simon Pegg with his tongue firmly in his cheek) doesn't appear until the last third of the film, so I suppose they had to find someone to fill his shoes for that scene. Uhura is the only character to have more of a developed character than she ever did in the original series, acting as a surprise love-interest for a major character.... And Zoë Saldana isn't exactly ugly, either!

There are enough nods to the original series to keep the fans happy, enough differences to make their blood boil, and probably enough to keep the non-Trekkie entertained too. The film looks brilliant, from the Enterprise's new iBridge (I like the idea that the viewscreen is also a window now, rather than just the old screen), to the more realistic, down-and-dirty engineering section, all pipes and water and steam. Looks like Abrams been watching his Firefly...!

I liked the film, but I didn't love it, but then I've never really been a fan of the original series (more of a Next Gen boy). I felt the plot, although emotionally engaging, was a little slight, and I'm pretty much sick to death of time-travel shenanigans in Star Trek, which I'd hoped we'd left behind. I'm sure there'll be more films to come, and this is a likeable, fun version of the crew to go on new voyages with.

Rendez-Vous

Seriously, if you haven't heard this album, then you have no excuse not to hear it now. You can get Jean Michel Jarre's incredible 1986 album Rendez-Vous for only £3 as an MP3 download!

It's majestic, fantastic, awe-inspiring, eerie, beautiful, and wonderful. Go buy it now, and tell me what you think! (You can also get Oxygène for £3 too!)

Friday Night Blog: Credo

I believe...

...that belief in God and Darwinism needn't be mutually exclusive. After all, who's to say that God didn't click his fingers, and, ta-dah!, Big Bang? Of course, the whole Adam and Eve, and dinosaur-denial thing is bollocks, so maybe we should still hunt down Creationists and make them suffer.

...that selfishness is the only sin. Iain M. Banks wrote that in one of his books, and the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. You only sin when you put yourself and your needs in front of evryone else's. Be nice to everybody and we'll all get along nicely.

...we're closer to living a "heathen" lifestyle than we ever have in the last 2000 years. We don't believe in God until we want something and then we'll pray like buggery. Why not call God, Odin, or Thor, or Loki, and have done with it. Plus we all then get to believe in Valhalla and when we die, we have a big party with lots of food and drink and sex. Result.

...that the more stupid you are, the louder you have to talk.

...the world would be a lot better off without people in it. Fears of Global Warming aren't about saving the planet, they're about saving our (generally) worthless arses. The planet will reset itself when we're gone, and the cockroaches will take over.

...we are all geeks. Everyone is a fanatic about something. It annoys me to be called a geek (in a disparaging way) when I know all about Star Wars or Knight Rider or whatever. Hey, you, Mr. Hardcore Football Fan! You know who scored the winning goal in the 1992 FA Cup? How many caps Steven Gerrard has for England? You do? Oh. Guess what? You're a geek!

...sometimes I touch.

...that Peppa Pig is probably the greatest body of animation work produced this century. It has a clarity, a simplicity and a soul that a lot of other children's (and adults') TV is sadly missing. A whole range of emotions can be conveyed in just a narrowing of Peppa's eyes, or a tilt of Daddy Pig's head. Genius.

...pop music is underrated and sneered at by those who think they know better. Pop is popular - of the people, by the people, for the people. That doesn't mean we have to accept the pap forced upon us by shows like The X Factor. In the eighties, pop encompassed everything from Echo and the Bunnymen through to Fields of the Nephalim, to Phil Collins and out to Samantha Fox. It was diverse and eclectic, and we didn't all have to sit in little boxes.

...that eating implements made out of wood are the work of the devil. Chip forks, lolly sticks and ice-cream spoons should all be piled up and set ablaze.

Friday-Night Blog: Adam And Joe

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm here tonight to talk to you about something very close to my heart. Over the past few months, I've been privileged to have listened to some of the funniest radio ever broadcast in the history of the world. Ever. And some of it is just silly.

Yes, I'm talking to you about Adam And Joe on BBC 6Music. You may remember Adam and Joe from their late-night Channel 4 TV show, or from those soap powder commercials they did a few years back, but don't hold that against them. You see, for the last few years, Adam "Ad" Buxton and Joe "Joe" Cornish have been doing a Saturday morning show on the digital station from 9am to midday.

But I've never heard it.

I don't have a DAB radio. I usually work on a Saturday morning. And a third reason which I can't think of at the moment, but I felt I needed one to make this work. No, I just listen to their fantastic podcast, which is available through the BBC6 Music website, or through iTunes.

The weekly podcast includes all the tasty nuggets from their radio show, such as their ground-breakingly original feature, "Text the Nation", in which our heroes set a topic and get their loyal listeners to text in ("But I'm using e-mail, is that a problem?"). Recent themes have included bad interviews or auditions, public pretending (strange things you do to cover up embarrassing events) and favourite cakes. No wait, that wasn't exactly one.

And then there's "Song Wars" ("the war of the songs, a couple of tunes by a couple of prongs"). Adam and Joe construct songs based on a theme and then leave it to the listeners to decide which one is the best. The best ones have even made it onto an album, available on iTunes.

Adam and Joe are just plain funny, the sort of people that you would want to listen to on a Saturday morning. Or a Tuesday evening. Or a Friday lunchtime. Whenever you want to listen to their podcast. Or you could Listen Again to the whole show through the website or the BBC iPlayer.

Or you could become a member of Black Squadron, the elite team of listeners who listen to the show at 9am on a Saturday morning. You'd also get to hear the music they play, which I'm lead to believe is quite good (as you'd expect from a station called 6Music...) I don't know, I only listen to the music-free podcast.

And then you will know about the power of Adam and Joe. The idiot-holes. Thank you for your attention, and good night.



"Stephen!"

Friday-Night Blog...

Look, I'm out. I've got nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. I've been doing stock-takes, and getting ready for my own, so my mind's been elsewhere. Not enough time to muse on the finer points of the world...

Not to mention the fact that I'm knackered. Hopefully not so knackered that the dreaded pink-eye returns. That was all kinds of suck-ass.

We went to Frankie and Bennie's last night, mostly so I could remember what my family looked like and so that we wouldn't have to cook (and wash up). I like F&B's - good food, not too expensive, but the mega-loud choruses of "Happy Birthday" can get a bit much at times... Still, JW likes it and he seems to enjoy eating there, so at least we're not wasting our money by taking him there! It's also just down the road from us, so we can walk there! Looks like they're opening a branch of Chiquitos next door too, so I may have to go there and have too many Long Island Ice Teas sometime. Anyone want to join me?

50 Questions

I've been tagged and am now tagging you! Copy and paste these questions on your own "note," replacing my answers with yours, then tag 25 people to do the same thing. Remember to tag me back so I can see your answers!

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? There was an actor called Craig Stevens, I think he was in he original Dragnet TV show. Apparently my mum just liked the sound of it.

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? When I had conjunctivitis a few weeks ao and got really fed up.

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? It's OK.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? Pastrami.

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS? Yep, one son.

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? I think so.

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM? Only if there's a 'y' in the day.

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? Yes.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? Never. Unless you were going to pay me lots of money. At least £10,000.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? Crunchy Nut Cornflakes.

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? Nearly always.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? Pistachio.

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? Their face.

15. RED OR PINK? Red. But pink latex. ;)

16. WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? My ability to get distracted easily.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? My sister, Fiona.

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO COMPLETE THIS LIST? Couldn't be bothered to read everyone's. Just a select few!

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? Um, I'm in my PJs at the moment. They're grey, if you're interested.

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? The Backyardigans

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? Green

23. FAVORITE SMELL? Roast Chicken

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO? My son, Joseph.

25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? Yes, he's OK. ;)

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? Tennis.

27. HAIR COLOUR? Blonde.

28. EYE COLOR? Blue.

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? No.

30. FAVOURITE FOOD? Roast chicken and rice.

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? Happy endings.

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? Watchmen

33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? Grey. I told you already.

34. SUMMER OR WINTER? Both, as long as it's sunny.

35. HUGS OR KISSES? Kisses.

36. FAVORITE DESSERT? Nigel Slater's Trifle.

37. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Laura.

38. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Most other people.

39. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? Hyperion by Dan Simmons.

40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? Don't have one, I use a MacBook.

41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT? Nothing, I was out at Harlow's stock-take all night.

42. FAVORITE SOUND(S)? Joseph's laugh.

43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? The Stones if pushed. Not too fussed about either, really. I prefer The Kinks.

44. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME? Iraq when I was 8.

45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? I can wobble my eyes from side to side really quickly.

46. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Chatham in Kent.

47. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK? Anyone's!

48. HOW DID YOU MEET YOUR CURRENT PARTNER? Sometime in the first year of uni in Swansea.

49. IS THE CUP HALF FULL OR HALF EMPTY? Depends on what's in it.

50. IF YOU COULD SIT DOWN TO DINNER WITH FIVE PEOPLE WHO WOULD YOU CHOOSE? Nigel Slater (as long as he'd cooked), Jean Michel Jarre, Jim Henson, Davina McCall, Kylie Minogue.

10 Random Songs

So here's what you do. Fire up your iPod or iTunes (other music players/programs are available), and set it to Shuffle Songs from your entire library (no cheating by choosing a cool playlists). Then you have to list the first ten songs that come up, who they're by and what album they're from. No skipping! Then just write a few lines about that song - if you like it, any memories attached to it... And then post it and tag some friends!

1. "Je Sais Pas" by Céline Dion from D'eux - Great start... In my defence, it's my wife's album, but it is probably the only credible album Céline Dion's done, and this song ain't too bad. Don't feel the need to skip on...

2. "Satin Chic" By Goldfrapp from Supernature - That's a bit better! A nice glam pop song with a honky tonky piano. Not as good as some of their other stuff, but nice enough.

3. "Dream Of Me" by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark from The OMD Singles - A track from a compilation album. Quite good, but not as good as the singles.

4. "Knight Rider 2000" by Jan Hammer from Drive - The very cool theme from the Knight Rider 2000 TV movie from the guy who did the Miami Vice music. Not as cool as the original Knight Rider but cool nonetheless. In a jazzy, piano bar kind of way.

5. "Snow Cherries from France" by Tori Amos from Tales of a Librarian - Tori doing her thing. Unremarkable but quite nice. (Ugh. I have a bland music library from this little selection...)

6. "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" by U2 from Achtung Baby - That's better. A great track from an excellent album. Reminds me of being in a Youth Hostel in Orange County, California, eating cheese left over from a ploughman's and chips at the English Pub down the road. This was one of the CDs left in the hostel. I listened and loved.

7. "Without You I'm Nothing" by Placebo from Without You I'm Nothing - Ah, a bit of pre-millennial angst. Nice. Goes on a bit though...

8. "Spies" by Coldplay from Parachutes - Don't know how this got on here.... Music to fall asleep to....

9. "Strange But True" by Prince (for arguments sake) from Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic - Nice little funky track from one of the purple one's less successful albums.

10. "Halloween" by Kirsty MacColl from From Croydon to Cuba... An Anthology - Ah, the sorely missed Miss MacColl. She had some great songs, and I don't remember hearing this one before.

Friday-Night Blog: Me and the Manics

The handy-dandy iLike application in Facebook informed me this week that the Manic Street Preachers are playing the Roundhouse in Camden in a few weeks time, which got me thinking about the Manics... (see, it's not just thrown together, this. Literally minutes of thought go into it. OK, it's a bit late this week, but hey, I'm only human. Don't see any of you trying to write a weekly blog post... Come on then... You do it if you think it's so easy.... Sheesh. Ahem.)

So anyway, me and the Manics have a very strange relationship. I've been a fan of them since very near the beginning of their careers. I'm not saying I was there at the release of the New Art Riot EP, but, I'm sure I've liked them since Mark and Lard used to play "You Love Us" (and then hijacked it for their "We Love Us" bit on the radio). I loved their energy and their music, but bizarrely, I don't remember seeing any pictures of them for a long time, but I think I would have loved them all the more for their New Art Punk look. I loved the idea that they had the original plan of selling umpteen million copies of Generation Terrorists and then splitting up in a blaze of glory. The opening salvo of "Slash and Burn", the first track on the album, is possibly the greatest statement of intent by any band anywhere, ever. James Dean Bradfield's guitar starts off fast and furious and just gets faster and more furious. (Apparently, Richey Edwards used to dare him to play faster...)

So, time went on, and I bought their second album, Gold Against The Soul. By this time, I'd started to twig that the Manics might be a little, well, political. I don't do politics. It brings me out in a rash. And yet I loved this very intellectual, very political band. Most of the time it didn't matter, because you couldn't understand what James Dean Bradfield was singing anyway. To this day, I still don't have a clue what half the lyrics to their early albums are, I just have to hum along until I get to the bits I recognise...

And in 1994, I went to the USA, and the Manics released their last album with Richey Edwards before he disappeared, The Holy Bible. Although it didn't do too well on first release, it has since become regarded as their masterpiece. I however don't get it. It's not to say I don't like it, I just don't get it. Maybe it's because I was out of the country (the Manics weren't big in Flagstaff), but it had absolutely zero impact on me. It took me a few years to buy it (well after Everything Must Go, and possibly even after This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours) and I've never really got a handle on it. The lyrics were mostly written by Richey, and weren't exactly full of the joys of spring. Maybe it's just too much for my sunny disposition. Don't get me wrong, I like a bit of angst as much as the next guy, but songs about anorexia and whatnot are a bit too much for me.

Then the Manics released Everything Must Go and suddenly they were beloved of your Ben Sherman-wearing lad out on the piss: "We don't talk about love/We only want to get drunk", who as usual, completely miss the point.... Never mind, the album was great, and since then they haven't put a foot wrong in my opinion. I even love Lifeblood, seen by many as their nadir, before their solo work and then the "back to form" album, Send Away The Tigers. When I went to see them on their Forever Delayed Greatest Hits tour, I was totally blown away. It's probably the best gig I've been to in terms of the inspirational effect it had on me. Not that I picked up a guitar and started to write songs, that would be too much like positive action for me. But I wanted to. I couldn't believe the noise these three men made, with James tearing up his guitar and the stage, Nicky loping about like a bass-playing giraffe, and Sean creating thunder at the back. It was incredible.

The good news is that there's a new Manics album due out next month. The not-so-good news (for me) is that it's based on notes and lyrics left to the band by Richey Edwards before his disappearance. So in effect, it's The Holy Bible, Part II. Could be good. I hope it is. No doubt I'll buy it, probably on the day it comes out. I'm strange like that.

So that's me and the Manics. A strange love affair. But a wonderful one.

Friday-Night Blog: I Blame Rick McCallum...

So, I was watching Star Wars: The Clone Wars (the 3D animated series) yesterday, which seems to be showing on Cartoon Network here in the UK, after having been isolated to Sky Movies before, and I thought it was quite good, which got me to thinking... Where did it all go wrong for the Star Wars saga?

I used to love Star Wars - no, actually that's an understatement. I used to eat, drink and breathe Star Wars. I used to watch my VHS copies of the Trilogy on an old black and white TV in my room, snatching a few minutes of Jedi while I got ready for school in the morning. I used to read and re-read all the books I had, and hunt for old second-hand copies of annuals and storybooks - this was in the dark times, before the coming of the second merchandising wave, when there was, frankly, sod all new Star Wars around!

And then, Dark Horse Comics published Star Wars: Dark Empire, in 1991; Timothy Zahn's novel Heir to the Empire was published in 1992, and the ball started rolling again. More books, more comics... And my Star Wars reflex kicked in! I bought nearly everything I could that had the Star Wars name on it, spending all my available money on it. Everything was fantastic in the Star Wars Universe. Us fan boys were happy, very happy. And then...

And then, George Lucas announced that he would be making Episodes I to III of the series, and we would get the full story - we'd see Anakin Skywalker's fall from grace, his voyage to the dark side, Obi-Wan Kenobi fighting in the Clone Wars... The anticipation was immense. And before that, we'd get new, spanky, souped-up versions of the Original Trilogy IN THE CINEMA!

And that's where I think the rot set in. George Lucas had the chance to go back and "tinker" with our beloved films. Don't get me wrong, I like most of the changes made in the films - the attack on the Death Star needed sprucing up, Cloud City's windows do open up the landscape, and the um, well, no actually most of the changes in Return of the Jedi were totally unnecessary (and they got worse when Hayden Christensen was dropped into the film on the DVD...) Most importantly, GREEDO DID NOT SHOOT FIRST.... ahem.

To help with all the work on the Special Editions, and the Prequel Trilogy, Lucas enlisted Rick McCallum, who had worked with the Great Beard on the Young Indiana Jones series. Alarm bells should have rung then, quite frankly...

And so, in 1999, we got Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace. God we wanted to love that film. I watched it two and a half times (fell asleep watching it on my stag-night...). I didn't mind Jar-Jar, Jake Lloyd as young Anakin was OK, Darth Maul was pretty cool with his double-blade lightsaber, Liam Neeson was solid and Ewan McGregor was over-keen as young Obi-Wan, but there was something a bit, well, hollow in the whole enterprise. It had Star Wars on the label, but it felt like something else was on the till.

Three years later we got Episode II - Attack of the Clones and we also got the afore-mentioned Christensen. Well, to say he was wooden would be insulting to trees, but he just didn't fill the role of the nascent Dark Lord of the Sith. He was just a whiney brat who apparently didn't like sand. The romance between Anakin and Padmé was risible, and you got the feeling the Natalie Portman was trying her best, but couldn't muster up the enthusiasm to deal with her love interest...

And then, in 2005, we finally got to see Anakin become Vader. Possibly the strongest film of the prequels (save for the fact that Portman seemed to have died inside somewhere - probably when she saw her script), it still lacked... soul. We knew we should be feeling something, we knew we should love these film like we loved the original films, and we've tried to convince ourselves to love them over the last four years, but we really can't....

Where are the heroes? What kid wants to be Anakin or Obi-Wan or Padmé, like we wanted to be Luke or Han or Leia? In what way were any of the ships cooler than the Millennium Falcon or the X-Wings (or TIE Fighters, come to that?) Even Yoda's gymnastics were a little bit, well, silly, if you think about it. The over-reliance on CGI for the special effects already looks dated in some cases, whereas the model work from the Original Trilogy still stands the test of time.

So why do I blame Rick McCallum? Well, I don't think the man had the cojones to say no to George Lucas. I believe that every artist needs an editor, a critic or an executive to stand up to them and tell them when something just isn't good enough. Prince hasn't really made a consistently decent album since he parted company with Warners as he's been allowed to indulge himself - even such celebrated writes as T.S. Eliot had editors to send them back to the drawing board. I believe that Lucas needed that, and Rick McCallum wasn't the man for the job.

I've given up on the majority of Star Wars products these days. There are too many books (I gave up after the New Jedi Order series), comics and video games to buy. I'm looking forward to the live-action series due to arrive in the next few years, because I'm an optimist. I hope I get to see more of the Clone Wars TV show, but it seems to be a bit random at the moment.

I still love Star Wars, I really do. I just wish the Prequels had been so much better.

Review: "Wild Boy: My Life in Duran Duran" - Andy Taylor

Duran Duran were probably the first band that I really loved - not just in a "oh, they make good songs" kind of way, but in a "wow, they're really great" kind of way. I loved John Taylor's funky bass playing (just listen to some of those bass lines), Nick Rhodes' cool and funky synth lines, Roger Taylor's power drumming ("Wild Boys"), and Simon Le Bon's perfect pop voice (and lyrics, which as every '80s pop band knew, shouldn't be easily understood, and if you could hear them, they shouldn't make sense) but I never really got Andy Taylor's contribution to the band. Not that the guitar parts weren't important; his acoustic work on tracks like "Save A Prayer" is fantastic, but he always seemed to me the outsider, the "rock" star who had wandered into this "pop" band, and would prefer to not be wearing the make-up and tea-towel clothes.

Andy's book, Wild Boy: My Life in Duran Duran confirms much of this feeling. He was the last member to be recruited to the band, having been gigging with various rock bands around Europe, and was one of the first to leave (and the only member to leave twice!) when things went a bit wonky. His story is one of antagonism with various members of the band (and management and record company) at one time or another, but what also comes across is his attempts at trying to keep everything together when the excesses of being one of the biggest bands of the '80s were taking their toll.

Andy tells his story with a great sense of humour and realism. He doesn't shy away from the problems he had with drink and drugs, but neither does he gloss over them, or even moralize about them. He talks frankly about the problems within the band and reveals why he had to leave the band in the mid-eighties, and then again after the reunion.

What has struck me is how much I now appreciate his contribution to one of my favourite bands. He reveals that his favourite Duran song is "The Reflex", (the same as mine) and also reveals the struggle the band had to get the Nile Rogers remix of the song released by the record company in the USA. The problem? It apparently sounded "too black"! The band (especially Andy) fought to get it released, and it became their biggest single of all, showing that record companies don't always know what's best.

This is the first official autobiography of Duran Duran, and as such it obviously has its shortcomings, as the band still carried on without Andy during the second half of the eighties and into the nineties. Andy understandably glosses over this time (as the book is subtitled "My Life in Duran Duran"), but he also doesn't recognize the fact that the band did quite well without him (especially the Notorious and Duran Duran - The Wedding Album albums.

Hopefully, this book will drive one of the other band members to give their side of the story. Nick Rhodes would be ideal, as he's the only member of the band to have survived from their earliest Rum Runner days all the way through to the present day. Until then we'll just have to make do with Andy Taylor's, which isn't a bad thing after all. (You could also try Steve Malins' unauthorised biography Notorious, which is also quite entertaining.)

Friday-Night Blog: Star Trek

And so, the great barrel of ideas gets scraped once more, as the big screen reprise/remake/reimagining/regurgitate of Star Trek heads towards our cinema screens this spring. The idea around this version is that we get to go back to before the original TV series to see how Kirk and Spock meet, and their first mission in the Enterprise.

Now, as you might imagine, this kind of reboot has got a lot of people hot under the collar, and yes, I'm talking about the geeks here. They've got all sorts of issues with the movie, ranging from the fact that the Enterprise wasn't built on Earth, much less in a field on Iowa, that Chekov didn't join the crew until the second season....

I couldn't care less really (although why would a spaceship that doesn't have to cope with gravity be built on a planet?) My biggest issue is with the whole time-travel plot that is rumoured to be an integral part of the film. From what I can gather, the old Spock (played by Leonard Nimoy) has some interaction with a younger version of himself (probably played by Heroes own mr Nice Guy Sylar, Zachary Quinto), which alters history. Now if this means that every version of Star Trek is wiped from history, then OK, that's fine, we can deal with that (especially if that means Voyager never happened...)

My concern is that this means that Kirk didn't get sucked into the Nexus (as in Star Trek: Generations) and so didn't get killed by Malcolm McDowell, and so we have to put up with even more Shatner-antics as Kirk. Although, he's not in the new film, so hopefully we'll be spared...

Friday-Night Blog: Hmmm.

Well, I've got myself into this mess, now I'd better think of something to write. I could go on about the final episode of Battlestar Galactica and how it totally rocked, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about how frakkin' awesome it was, but that would risk alienating everyone who doesn't give a toss... All I can say is I hope the people who make Lost watched it and were making notes of how to not suck. We can but hope...

So, what shall I write about? I made some granola today. Yep. That's exciting and sure to get everyone commenting in their droves. Actually, it's become a bit weird now that I know people are reading this - I don't know if that means I've changed the way I write, or what I write, but it's strange to think that I'm not just blogging to the wall, so to speak. It's nice that people are reading it, but also a little bit scary.

Would quite like to see Monsters vs. Aliens. Looks almost as good as a Pixar movie, and quite funny. It'd be good to see it in 3D, but that would involve a trip to the Big Smoke (which I'd like, but at about £15 for a train ticket these days, it'd work out at quite pricey trip.

Sorry, but that's all I've got at the moment. I'll try and do better for next week. If you're watching on Facebook, please become a fan. Thank you.

Friday-Night Blog: Battlestar Galactica

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR ANYONE NOT WATCHING BATTLESTAR GALACTICA AS IT IS BROADCAST. CATCH UP ALREADY!

And so, after 4 years, (possibly) the greatest sci-fi series ever seen on television comes to an end. If you're in the USA, it ends tonight, and if you're in the UK, then it ends on Tuesday. (Unless you're one of those "download it from the internet-type people...)

It seems hard to believe that a remake of a hokey late-'70s TV show could have become something more than the sum of its parts, and yet, it is now being discussed (by the Guardian newspaper at least) in the same breath as such "must-see" "adult" TV as The Wire. (as long as you can ignore the bits about robots and FTL drives, because that's just silly childish stuff isn't it?)

And so we have a show that has dealt with racism, torture, extraordinary rendition, martial law, questions of mono- and poly-theism, rape, murder, child abductions, terrorism, fate and predestination... The frakkin' UN has even convened a council to discuss the TV show! That's is how important it is. More important than wars or famine or disease.

There's a hell of a lot of questions to be answered in the final two-hour episode, and I have a feeling we won't get them all, but then we never get all the answers in life. What the frak is Starbuck? Angel? Cylon? Something else? Where is the seventh Cylon, Daniel? Will the crew ever find a home? Will Baltar do the right thing for the right reasons? What's with all the Jimi Hendrix?

I predict at least two deaths - Laura Roslin (who was barely able to stand up to join Galactica's rescue mission), and Galactica herself. The old girl's falling apart as it is, let alone having to jump into a Cylon fortress next to a black-hole. I'm also convinced that Adama will go down with his ship... Beyond that, who knows. (I'm also hoping Apollo gets his hair cut.)

It's a measure of the show's quality, that the original Battlestar Galactica was made as a TV answer to Star Wars (something George Lucas' lawyers pointed out...), and now it seems that the Great Beard himself wants to model his live-action Star Wars TV show along the same lines.

I will miss Battlestar Galactica (but not all the mumbled dialogue - I'm looking at you Olmos and McDonnell) , but this isn't the end of the road. There's a TV movie - "The Plan" out later in the year showing life on Caprica before the attack, and then we have the prequel series called Caprica set fifty years earlier, and depicting the lives of two Caprican families - the Adamas and the Greystones - the development of the Cylons... and the subsequent war...

So here's to the Galactica - she was a good ship, and we will miss her. So say we all!

Friday-Night Blog: Comic Relief

So, it's Comic Relief night tonight, so make sure you all go and give lots of money. Bizarrely, this is the first year that I actually have donated a decent sum of money (when I think I really can't afford it, but hey...) due to that "Roly-Poly DJ" heaving himself up a mountain... Curse the power of suggestion, and well done to Chris and everyone for making it up Kilimanjaro!

Comic Relief day always comes tinged with a bit of sadness for me, as it was on Comic Relief day in 2001 that I found out my sister was going to die. (Sorry if that just derailed you there...) I was sitting watching the stuff they were doing on CBBC in the afternoon, when the phone rang. It was my step-father, telling me that my sister Fiona's illness was actually terminal cancer, and that I needed to get up to Manchester straight away. He'd gone up there with my Mum the previous day to see how she was as they thought she'd got some liver infection or something. I nearly went with them that day, but hadn't for some unknown reason - work or something, or maybe telling myself it was only a bug, because serious illnesses don't just happen like that, do they?

Anyway, the phone call was like a sledgehammer to my stomach. I remember sitting crouched over the seat of the armchair, trying to comprehend, to try and talk this around - surely they could do a liver transplant or some such procedure? But no, the cancer had grown inexorably within her and had spread far beyond the liver. I don't remember much of the rest of the day.

My wife drove me up to Manchester early the next day, with me in floods of tears half the time. It was so surreal to get to the hospital and see all my family and my sister's family there. By the time we got there, Fiona was in a coma, pumped full of painkillers and drugs and being fanned to try to control the incredible heat being generated by her body. I spoke to her - I don't know if she heard, but I had to talk to her, to try and promise her things I would do in her memory.

We left a while later to try to find somewhere to stay, and while watching a John Wayne film in a hotel room, we got the phone call from her husband John to say Fiona had died. I believe that she held on long enough for me and her friends to get there, so she knew she could go in peace.

So that's why Comic Relief is a bit of a double-edged sword for me, and not just because of some of the "comedy" they put up for our entertainment...! So, go and give them money, or give some to Cancer Research if you prefer, because in my mind it's not fair that a healthy 31-year old woman who didn't smoke, rarely drank and had a six-month old son should die of cancer, when some hard-drinking, chain-smokers live into their nineties.

I haven't exactly done something funny for money there, have I?

'In support of Comic Relief, registered charity 326568 (England/Wales); SC039730 (Scotland)'

Friday-Night Blog: Watchmen

So, yep, this blog's late... No change there then, but at least I do have a valid excuse. Last night I went to see Watchmen, so that's where I was, and that's why the Friday-Night Blog is coming at you on a Saturday!

Well, I've been sitting here trying to write a clever, informative review, but it's not working. If you want that sort of thing, then go read Empire's or SFX's review, 'cos they're better at that than me! Besides, I'm trying to catch up on Heroes at the same time, so I'm a bit distracted.

The cut-to-the-chase version is that I liked it. It worked for me as a film, probably because I read the graphic novel nearly 20 years ago (I'm old!), and I'm not a huge fan (I always preferred Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns) It's a long film, weighing in at two and a half hours, but it fairly bounces along. There's a lot of violence and a heck of a lot of gore, which is why the film gets its 18 certificate. And Malin Ackerman's Silk Spectre (Ieft) challenges Michelle Pfieffer's Catwoman as the comic-book geeks' fantasy fetish female... Some of the CGI work left me a little cold, as if I know it's all going to date very quickly, especially Dr Manhattan and his giant clockwork fortress. What's wrong with painting a guy blue and then making him glow? Ah well...

I'm sure I could think of other more enlightened things to say, but they ain't happening now! Go and see the film if you like your comic-book movies dark and gritty and violent!

Not much else has been going on this week. Back at work after a week's holiday, but I've got myself a new Assistant Manager, so come April, I'll be able to go out at lunchtime again! Still loving Battlestar, and enjoying reading Susan Winemaker's Concertina: The Life and Loves of a Dominatrix - lots of kinky sex and food, which seems good to me! I'm also liking the pure unadulterated geekiness at Topless Robot.

So that's it, that's my week!

The Friday-Night Blog...

...has been delayed. I went to see Watchmen last night, and I'm still trying to formulate my thoughts. Should have something by the end of the day! Promise!

25 Things

So, there's this Facebook thing going around, where you have to write 25 random things about yourself and then let other people know, and then hopefully they'll do the same and so on.. I quite liked mine, so I thought I'd reproduce them here... Feel free to comment on any or all of them! (Sorry if you're a Facebook friend and have seen these before!)

1. I worry too much about what other people think of me, and hate myself for doing it.

2. I have trouble finishing things I start (so I might only get to 19 things).

3. I wish I had gone to art school, instead of doing what my Mum wanted me to do.

4. I am glad I went to Swansea to study, because I wouldn't have met my wife otherwise.

5. I love eating Ambrosia Devon Custard straight out of the carton.

6. I wish I'd travelled America more than I did, and hadn't been such a wuss.

7. I don't like it when people I think are friends suddenly decide they aren't.

8. I'm was incredibly surprised and happy that someone I only vaguely knew at work has become a friend (or at least I think they have...!)

9. I've noticed that as I've grown older, I've started to like dark chocolate a lot more (especially on digestives).

10. I'm so incredibly proud of my son.

11. I hate how life and death can be so incredibly unfair, and why bad stuff happens to good people.

12. I'm probably more addicted to Diet Coke than I would like to imagine.

13. I can get a little obsessive at times.

14. I'd love to visit Australia.

15. i want to achieve something worthwhile before I'm forty, like climbing Mount Fuji, or cycling Cuba for charity.

16. I love the Manic Street Preachers, but don't get The Holy Bible.

17. I have a fetish for women's high-heeled boots.

18. I like blackbirds.

19. I sometimes think I should be gay, but don't actually fancy men.

20. I don't understand why people would choose to use Windows (especially Vista).

21. I think women speaking in German is extremely erotic.

22. I miss my sister every day.

23. I think M*A*S*H is the greatest TV programme ever made.

24. I'd like to apologise to all the women I pursued between the ages of 16 and 22.

25. I'm sure I'll think of umpteen cleverer and funnier things to have written here as soon as I publish this!

Friday-Night Blog!

So, as I'm doing a big (well, medium-sized... OK, small) push for this website on Facebook, I thought I should give you all something new to read. So, here it is, the first of hopefully series of Friday-Night Blogs, where I generally have a round-up of my week.

So, what;s been going on? Well, I've been off work all this week, which has been great. It's been so good just to spend time with my wife and son, instead of seeing them for a couple of hours every night. We've been to play parks twice, we've been swimming, and generally hanging out with each other.

It was my birthday on Wednesday, I turned the big 35. Genuinely chuffed to get a lot of best wishes on Facebook, and a decent amount of cards. Also got some blinking good gifts, like Doctor Who Season One on DVD (Good old Eccles-cake!), Stardust, an intriguing book called Death and the Penguin and a Cookie Monster t-shirt from my son. It's Em's birthday tomorrow, so we're off to the zoo! (Birthday cake has been baked and is cooling!)

Finally got to catch up on most of my stories on TV - two lots of Lost and Battlestar Galactica. I'm getting impatient with Lost, I just want it over and done with, especially with all the time-flipping stuff. Just tell me what the whole thing's about and let me go! Battlestar, on the other hand, is quickly running out of shows and I don't want it to end!

My current bandwagon is Twitter, with which I'm becoming quickly disillusioned. I get it, I just don't think I care what all these people are doing every minute of the day. It seems that a lot of people on there are sycophantic, working themselves up into a frenzy because they're following Stephen Fry or whoever. I'm sure it's good for all these people trying to sell you something, but I think it's crazy when you now have a Dr Pepper Twitter feed... Still, I've made a new friend on there, but I'm friends with her on Facebook, so that's OK. Hi, Claire!

Wendy Richard died, which was incredibly sad. (She'll always be Miss Brahms from Are You Being Served? to me, all those years as Pauline Fowler couldn't erase those formative memories!) Jade Goody's dying, which is even more tragic. Whatever you think of the girl, no-one deserves to lose their life in such an horrific, slow, painful way.

I'm sure there are lots of other things I could talk about, but you're probably tired of reading them now. From here on in, I'm going to keep notes in my nice new leather diary (thanks, Jonathan!), so I'll be able to keep up with my own thoughts!

Twitter

As there seems to be a huge media thing about Twitter at the moment, I decided to join up.  If there's a bandwagon, see me leap!

At the moment I'm following Graham Linehan, Phill Jupitus and a model called Apnea (who's very cute).

I'm annoyed that I can't Twitter from my mobile, like I can update my Facebook status, but there you go.  

If anyone wants to follow my feed, you can find it at twitter.com/MrFraig