The Moon is in Uranus

Word of the day. Crapsifruit.

2009-09-03T09:02:00.002Z

1.
a. - Alt. of Crapsifruit. ~ (Crap-see-frute)

To be a bit crap and slightly fruity. (See John Inman.)

2008-06-25T09:40:00.000Z

2008-06-25T09:33:00.001Z

Untitled

2008-03-14T21:50:00.001Z

This is a FLOCK test...

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Time...

2008-01-18T10:56:00.000Z

I've just done something very, very silly. I worked out how much time I spend commuting to my current job in Paddington. Wanna know? Well I'll tell you sweet reader. It's 4 and a half hours per day. Now that dearest, is a whopping 22 and a half hours per week. I basically travel for one day for every five. Now that's not right is it.

Off sick

2008-01-09T15:12:00.000Z

Today I took a day off work because I felt like shite but I was determined not to waste it sitting about watching daytime teevee and drifting in and out of consciousness so I set about a few odds 'n sods that I've been meaning to do for a while. Here's a handy list.
Today I...

Learnt how to crossfade images in Flash using XML
Priced up a new bathroom online
Dropped off some old clothes at the homeless shelter down the road
Watched a whole episode of 'Diagnosis Murder' (Which frankly made me feel worse.)
Discovered how to burn disk from my wonderful new DVD recorder & PVR
Rediscovered joy in the humble, but mighty, custard cream

Groaned as Hilary Clinton beat Barack Obama, winning New Hampshire's primary
Cheered as Apple announced plans to drop the price of tracks on iTunes in the UK
Had a poo
Added a new entry to my blog. This one.

And it's only half three.

How to write with feeling

2007-10-31T15:19:00.001Z

The other day I was talking to one of my new-temporary work colleagues about hospitals and the like and the subject of the Hickman Line I once had to have inserted into me came up. For those of you that don't know what a Hickman line is it's basically an intravenous cathater (usually used in the administration of chemotherapy) that gets inserted through the subcutaneous fat in your chest and fed into your superior vena cava (I think) so stuff can be pumped in to you. In my case the 'stuff' was a nutrient mix that looked rather like loose mash potato... in a bag. Anyhow, when I got the part of my tale when I asked if the mirror could be adjusted so I could watch the surgeon inserting the line whilst I lay prone on the operating table, one of the guys listening to my thunderously interesting story asked me, quite openly and earnestly, how it felt. All I could say on this matter was that 'it felt weird'. How crap is that!
Now when George Orwell was asked how it felt when he was shot in the throat whilst in Spain he replied:

"Roughly speaking it was the sensation of being at the center of an explosion. There seemed to be a loud bang and a blinding flash of light all around me, and I felt a tremendous shock - no pain, only a violent shock, such as you get from an electric terminal; with it a sense of utter weakness, a feeling of being stricken and shriveled up to nothing. The sandbags in front of me receded into immense distance. I fancy you would feel much the same if you were struck by lightning. I knew immediately that I was hit, but because of the seeming bang and flash I thought it was a rifle nearby that had gone off accidentally and shot me. All this happened in a space of time much less than a second. The next moment my knees crumpled up and I was falling, my head hitting the ground with a violent bang which, to my relief, did not hurt. I had a numb, dazed feeling, a consciousness of being very badly hurt, but no pain in the ordinary sense."

Man I wish I could be more lucid at times.

Hi, I'm Nadine Baggott

2007-10-04T09:58:00.001Z

“Hi, I’m Nadine Baggott celebrity beauty editor for such sterling publications as ‘Hello Magazine' and 'The Daily Mail' and regular guest on BBC ONE’s ‘Vanessa’ and I’d like to try to convince you that I’ve discovered a new revolution in women’s cosmetics but in reality I’ve just read that back of the box and fixated on one ingredient that just about everyone else knows about. Their called ‘Pantypapitudes’ and I think they’re the next big thing, bigger even than the other big things like ‘Nutrisse’, ‘Pro-MadeUp-Sium’ and ‘Make-Skin-Good-Smooth-rotention B’. You can tell I like this new product because I use heaps of it, 647grams a day to be precise. Can you see my flawless, waxy, doll-like skin? Can you see how it’s made my eyes sink into the middle of my witches shoe-face? You too can have this marvellous effect and have a face that looks like it caught fire and someone put it out with a spade by simply being gullible and believing what I tell you. Believe in me and you too can look like the beast from that ‘Beauty & the Beast’ TV show. Go on, you’re worth it. Or you can go buy Nivea’s new product that has 15% more air in it.”

SAL 9000

2007-09-28T07:58:00.000Z

Trawling YouTube I came across this clip of SAL 9000 & Dr. Chandra.

Today's nice robot is...

2007-09-25T16:30:00.000Z

SONNY from I, Robot

Sonny is an NS-5 robot designed by his creator Alfred Lanning, to be different from the other model NS-5's (he has blue eyes not gold) because Dr. Lanning wants him to carry out a very special request. Namely to shove him out of a high window. Now before you all start jumping up and down shouting, "But this is Nice robots Mr. TeaIsLife, not Evil robots!", Lanning orders Sonny to do it as his last request in order to get Will Smith involved for some strange and rather convoluted reason.
Now Sonny is a REALLY nice robot all things considered. As the plot rolls along it turns out that Sonny (previously suspected by Will S. of murder) is living with the deep, dark tormented secret that he killed his creator as an act of kindness. Aawww... Poor Sonny huh? He just wants to be liked and work out who he is and everything but everyone keeps pestering him and trying to inject little nano-killer-robot things into his head. What a bottomer.
Anyhow, Sonny (though not the most interesting of robots) does look mighty cool in the film and turns out to be quite a kick-ass bot later in the day so all's well in Nice-Robot-Land I feel.

NICE ROBOTS

2007-09-24T15:41:00.000Z

So, as a follow up to my barely-successful, award losing series EVIL ROBOTS, I thought I'd delve once again into the robot barrel and see what examples of niceness I could dredge up and let me tell you, there are quite a few. You see robots are supposed to BE nice and nice they are a lot of the time. So, without further ado I present to you oh ever faithful reader, the first in my equally spurious NICE ROBOTS series.
Enjoy.

Today's nice robot is...

SAL 9000

The erstwhile counterpart of the murderous barn-pot that was HAL 9000 in Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Oddysey, SAL 9000 was, like her 'brother', a supercomputer designed by Dr. Chandra for use as a reference system for HAL With her gleaming blue 'eye' and her sultry, Indian accented voice SAL was a far more comforting character than HAL for one reason above all others. She never asphyxiated anyone and bunged 'em out an airlock. That kind of thing will really put a crimp on your day after all and she frankly wasn't that kind of computer. She was nice. If she'd have done anything she would've let poor Dave Bowman back in whilst looking at HAL with a kind of 'I'm not angry HAL, just disappointed' look whilst HAL looked at his feet and shuffled about mumbling something about being 'sorry' and that he'd try to re-connect Frank Poole's oxygen pipe...
So there you have it. HAL 9000 - Evil. SAL 9000 - Nice.

The cosmic balance is restored.

FILM REVIEW - 28 WEEKS LATER

2007-09-21T10:42:00.000Z

It's shit.

Lego Nose

2007-08-08T19:51:00.001Z

I think this could be the BEST photo I have EVER seen. True genius.
(Taken by Zig Zag on Flickr.)

So that's that over then.

2007-08-03T11:17:00.000Z

I finished the new Harry Potter book this morning and I've got to say that I new that was going to happen. I worked that 'twist' out from the last book so, to all those who didn't go along with my theory I can only say hah! WHO'S YOUR DADDY. I really enjoyed this book and (apart from a rather protracted dull bit in the middle) it's pretty bloody good. Better than good actually.
Nice one J.K.

Drunk spacemen

2007-07-27T14:53:00.000Z

To be fair if I was in charge of a few billion dollars worth of technology, sitting on a couple of thousand litres of rocket fuel with the eyes of the World and the hopes of hundreds of scientists, mathematicians & engineers upon me and THEN blasted into outerspace... I reckon I'd have drink or two.

Facebook

2007-07-26T11:44:00.000Z

So, I've finally caved to mounting pressure and signed myself up to Facebook. So far it's looking quite interesting. All my college friends are on there as are a few mates from Brighton. I've had a few chats with some old work colleagues and been turned into a zombie.

Flood

2007-07-24T11:46:00.000Z

These have to be two of the most dramatic pictures I've seen in relation to the current wave (pardon the pun) of floods we've been experiencing here in the UK. They look like they could be stills from some big budget disaster film with their scrawled, red, graffiti and ominous shadowed passer-by.
The whole thing is pretty scary and I'm put in mind of John Wyndham's excellent book 'The Kraken Wakes' when the BBC talks of the Thames bursting it's banks. Let's hope it's not the shape of things to come eh?

HOORAY!

2007-07-23T16:44:00.001Z

I just had a KIT-KAT and I got a whole finger of chocolate! If you don't know how brilliant that is then trust me, it's the Holy Grail of the KIT-KAT eater.

Olympics 20... er...

2007-06-04T11:33:00.001Z

Well apparently this is the new logo for London's attempt at the 2012 Olympics.

The logo is "available in four colours – pink, blue, green and orange - the new emblem is modern and will be dynamic, evolving in the years between now and 2012". And, yes you are right. It's shit isn't it. It took me ages to work out that it said '2012' and it looks like an 80's Wella ShockWaves hair product. Wolf-Ollins shat it out and they're supposed to be good! Still, at least we've got 5 years to get used to the bastard.

Why couldn't we have had something understated like the beautiful stylised maple leaf that came with Montreal in '76 or the structured and uplifting Soviet entry from 1980. Mexico's is frankly a thing of beauty and even London's from '48 is better.

One of the best comments I've read relating to it comes from the Guardian website - "Pretty much sums up the ambiguous vacuousness that is England these days where the image is so blurred and without meaning you need a consultant to help explain what it says and represents." He's got a point don't you think? The colours are bizzare (Steve just pointed out that it looks like they've chosen them to keep printing costs down) and are far from pleasant. And I've been so incensed by how crap the whole thing is I didn't even notice the sheer rubbishness of the word 'London' in the top left. Who the hell put that together! Looks like someone did it on the train on the way home. I've heard talk of the SS, 80's anti-war propaganda graphics and even Lisa Simpson giving head. The problem is that it seems to say something to everyone but 'London Olympics' to no-one.

Bye matey

2007-05-10T16:08:00.000Z

I think I've posted this picture of Pat before but I thought I'd pop it up again today in tribute to him. He was in his 18th year (pretty impressive I think) and had only really lost his 'bounce' in the latter 18 months but a full year after the vet gave him three weeks to live and two cancer operations later we finally decided that something had to be done. The tumors in his mouth were causing him pain and preventing him from eating food (his number one favourite past-time) and he wouldn't have survived a third operation so we took the humane course.
The vet was absolutely wonderful and came to our home to administer the injection. It was an emotional moment for all but mercifully quick. He looked so peaceful as they rolled him in a blanket to take him away for cremation.
So, thanks matey. Thanks for all the unconditional love you gave us, thanks for the all the times you made us laugh like drains by getting your head stuck in the back of the tumble dryer, the infamous 'balloon incident' and for slug-balancing. Thanks for being my little ginger buddy.
Bye Pat. I'll miss you terribly.

Hilarious

2007-05-09T17:46:00.000Z

I was just in the toilet here at work and some bloke came in, stood at the urinal and parped whilst having a wee. I nearly gave myself an aneurism trying not to laugh. I'm 33 years old, why do I still find that funny?

BBC's Any Dream Will Do

2007-05-09T17:20:00.001Z

Who cares?

Helvetica 50

2007-05-09T12:58:00.000Z

Many Happy Returns Helvetica.
Probably the World's most popular font turns 50 today (which is probably only interesting to the typographers and designers out there but hey, who's blog is this? It's mine isn't it so shuddup). Frank Wildenberg the managing director of Linotype (the German firm that owns the font) says of Helvetica "It's durable. It comes from natural design forms. It doesn't have an expression of fashion. It has very clear lines and characters, it looks like a very serious typeface." Whereas Neville Brody sees the bitch 'Helv' as "bland, unadventurous, unambitious." What do I think of it? I dunno really. I've got a sodding wedding to plan! Why are you pestering me with questions about poxy typefaces? So long as it's not bloody 'Comic sans' I don't give a damn right now.

Eastenders

2007-04-26T06:51:00.000Z

Who gives a fuck.

Long Live the Gene Genie!

2007-04-11T06:58:00.001Z

Last night the finest show on TV, Life on Mars, drew to it's inevitable and all-too-soon finale and man what a finale it was. Was Sam Tyler mad? In a coma or had he traveled in time? I'm still not sure to be frank but that doesn't matter. All that mattered was the ride and the big man himself, Gene Hunt. Possibly the greatest character on television. As a tribute, here's some of the Gene Genie's best quotes.

Gene: They reckon you've got concussion - but personally, I couldn't give a tart's furry cup if half your brains are falling out. Don't ever waltz into my kingdom playing king of the jungle.
Sam Tyler: Who the hell are you?
Gene: I'm Gene Hunt. Your DCI. And it's 1973. Nearly dinner time. I'm 'aving hoops

To a group of children playing near his car -
"Anything happens to this motor, I'll come around your houses and stamp on all your toys. Got it? Good kids.

Sam Tyler: This place is like Guantanamo Bay.
Gene Hunt: Get off, it's nothing like Spain.

"This case is going as fast as a bunch of spastics in a magnet factory"

"There will never be a woman Prime Minister as long as I have a hole up my arse."

"She's as nervous as a very small nun at a penguin shoot."

After Sam admits he was in love -
"You great, soft, sissy, girlie, nancy, French, bender, Mab United supporting poof!"

iMix

2007-03-28T16:13:00.000Z

One of the many things I do for Beth every-so-often is to whip up a playlist on iTunes. I can't do it the old fashioned, and infinitely better, way anymore (via the beauty of a C-60 or C-90 tape cassette) but iTunes provides me with a similar, albeit watered down, experience. Why am I telling you this oh sweet-smelling reader? Well I'll tell you why. Because I've just discovered you can publish - yes, publish - your iMixes on iTunes for other folk to look at and even buy. It's kinda like making your very own 'Now That's What I Call Music' style mix album and then flogging it.
Anyhoo - here are the first two I did for Beth.

Saw Jude Law this morning...

2007-03-26T12:39:00.000Z

He was filming (or more precisely he was being filmed) in Borough Market coming out of Applebee's fish shop. I did my damnedest to get in shot when the camera panned around and I reckon I just managed to sneak in. So look out for me in his next big budget Summer blockbuster "Fish Shop Browser".

Here he is... Nice coat Jude.

This is just genius

2007-03-12T13:45:00.000Z

Glass Harp on Vimeo

A day of mourning

2007-03-08T18:22:00.000Z

So today the World lost TWO great heroes.

Captain America created in 1941 by Created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby is to finally met his end at the hands of a sniper on the steps of a New York courthouse. The Cap' was created to fuel patriotic vigour during World War 2 and made his debut on the cover of 'Captain America Comics' punching Hitler in the mush. Go Cap!

On this side of 'the pond', John Inman passed away aged 71.

John Inman was the man behind the creation Mr. Humphries in crap 70's sitcom 'Are You Being Served' and is best known for his catchphrase "I'm free." and being VERY GAY.

2007-03-06T17:58:00.000Z

So this is how it ends.

2007-02-27T11:53:00.001Z

4.5 billion years ago a miracle of creation and science took place in this big ol' universe of ours when violent bursts of radiation or shockwaves from a nearby supernova, or exploding star, caused a gravitational collapse within a giant molecular space cloud and caused the cloud to break into smaller chunks. Some of these resultant pieces began to heat up and form protostars, forming a dense core where hydrogen, helium and other heavier trace elements fuse in a chemical reaction that generates staggering amounts of light and energy for billions of years.

A star is born.

Our Sun.

Hydrogen is the fuel that keeps the Sun burning and is steadily converted into helium through nuclear fusion, carrying energy away from the core through a combination of radiation and convective processes keeping the star stable and preventing it collapsing in on itself. At present there's a mix of around 75% hydrogen to 25% helium and a good balance of gravitational forces so there's plenty of life left in the old girl. Each second, more than 4 million tonnes of matter are converted into energy within the Sun's core.

In 3.5 billion years from now the hydrogen will be running out and the temperature will have risen by around 10%. The end will begin for our Sun. By this point mankind will have had to have left the Earth as the temperature here will be around the 2000C mark. 2 billion years later the hydrogen will have been exhausted and the Sun will start to burn helium instead. At around 10,000 times its current brightness and 80 times its current diameter (swallowing her nearest neighbour, tiny Mercury) her surface temperature will be in the region of 3,500C and she will no longer burn white but red as she becomes a Red Giant.

Betelgeuse star - a red supergiant nearing the end of it's life

Thankfully the Sun's gravitational pull will diminish the larger she becomes so Earth, and indeed Venus, will survive the massive expansion by being pushed into higher orbits. Despite this narrow escape from annihilation the Earth will be dead, her oceans having boiled away to nothing and the atmosphere will have been blown away by solar winds. Life on Earth will no longer exist. In any form.

In 6.5 billion years the Sun will begin to break up and expulsions of gases will signal her transition into a planetary nebulae. Now surface 'winds' will reach 6 million km/h and free floating clouds will be formed by gas breaking free.

The crab-nebulae - remnants of a supernova

Eventually, when all energy has been used and the Sun has burnt away her surface to leave only a dimly glowing core, the Sun will shrink to about the same size as Earth and become a white dwarf.

An artists impression of a White Dwarf

Millions of years later the fuel will be all but exhausted. Because she is no longer generating the necessary energy to keep the gravitational pull in balance she will become denser and smaller until roughly a millionth of her present size. She will gradually cool, her energy will wane and she will eventually emit no light. The Sun has become a black dwarf.

The Sun is now dead.

Quote of the day

2007-02-20T15:22:00.000Z

Me: "Pancake-day today guys - Shrove Tuesday."
Cleve: "Is it? It was Monday last year wasn't it?"

Yesterdays top stories...

2007-02-15T18:17:00.000Z

Here are my favourite of yesterday's headlines from the BBC website.

Chinese man to hang for ant scam
A Chinese company chairman has been sentenced to death for running a scam involving giant ants.
Wang Zhendong promised investors returns of up to 60% if they put money into the fictitious ant-breeding project, the court heard.

Karaoke marathon as South Korean woman sings for 60 hours
A South Korean woman has set an unofficial world karaoke record after singing nearly 1,000 songs in just under 60 hours, reports say.
Kim Seok-ok dropped to the floor after her marathon effort, which she said she undertook to cheer up her sick husband.

Milli Vanilli film 'in pipeline'
Notorious pop duo Milli Vanilli are to be the focus of a film about their fall from grace, reports say.Universal Pictures is developing the film about the pair who were stripped of a Grammy award after it emerged they had never sung on their records.
The duo lip-synched on hits including 1989 single Girl You Know It's True.

And finally?...
Is sex on a plane illegal?
An A-list actor is accused of having a mile-high fling, and a private plane company plans to launch chartered flights for romantic liaisons. But what exactly is the legality of this much fabled form of sexual indulgence?

The future is getting closer

2007-02-09T18:13:00.000Z

Underground 'Doomsday' seed bank unveiled.

This is very 'future' I trust you'll agree. Apparently, way off in chilly old Spitsbergen (one of the four islands that make up Svalbard in Norway) those canny boffins are about to go all 'doomsdaysurvivalofthespecieswemustsurvivelookoutforthatgiantasteroid' on us and dig their way 120 metres (364ft) deep into the side of mountain. Once there they'll build a very hi-tech and doubtless pristinely minimalist seed bank, the design of which was unveiled today.

It's within this 'Ark' that they'll bung seeds of all known varieties of food crops to safe-guard against a global catastrophe such as an asteroid strike of nuclear war. Brilliant. I can only hope that there will soon be an animal bank closely followed by a human storage facility where terabyte after terabyte of coded DNA are stored and sealed deep within the mountain. Presided over by inteligent but benign robot 'custodians', the DNA will ride out any disaster that befalls our planet waiting for the day when a program will activate and the DNA will be fired up and life will kick start into... Hang on. Getting a bit carried away with the Sci-Fi there. Still, it's a great story isn't it.

Some more incontravertibel truths...

2007-02-05T12:28:00.000Z

I love flying but I hate air travel. It's so cramped and ungainly.
I'll eat pretty much anything. (Within reason.)
Despite what my brother says, I am not a 'Big fat hen'.
I'm on a mission to read everything by John Wyndham and I'm nearly there.
This is the first year since age 12 I've not read Douglas Adam's Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy or George Orwell's 1984
One of my highest pleasures is picking and eating blackberries straight from the bush.
I have a tendency to do a little involuntary, wiggly dance in my chair when I'm eating nice food.
I have been known to eat a whole bag of Wine Gums before breakfast and can easily drink three mugs of tea in half an hour.
I prefer milk chocolate to dark chocolate except where digestives & Hob-Nobs are concerned.
People probably think I'm an atheist but I'm actually agnostic (and that DOESN'T mean I'm a fence-sitter).
I do a funny, tappy-finger thing on the bar when I'm ordering drinks or I count them off on my fingers when getting a round in.
I can be mesmerisingly lazy when necessary.
I think reality TV shows are mindless, ignorant and dangerous shite. However...
I was coerced into watching the X-Factor final and actually quite enjoyed it.
I wish I had been born on Skaro, then I would be a Dalek.
I can't stop listening to the new Amy Winehouse album.
I don't understand what people get out of reading 'HEAT' or similar magazines.
I don't sleep too well and can sometimes be found pacing the flat at 3:30 a.m.
I like a drink.
I'm no stranger to the pie counter.
I'm engaged to be married.

I am an old fart

2007-02-02T13:44:00.000Z

I'd rather have a cup of tea than a beer
I don't like loud music
I like a pub where you can sit down and hear what you're pub-partner is saying
I couldn't name anything in the Top Ten
Or the Top Twenty
Or Top Fifty come to that
I watch AND ENJOY 'Midsommer Murders'
I listen to music 'with a proper tune'.
I only dance when it's absolutely necessary (or when I'm very pished)
I'm not sure I agree with 'odd' flavoured crisps (I'll stick to the classics thank you)
I hold on to my pen until it's run dry, if I lose it or someone nicks it (Beth) I get upset
I drink ale not lager
I would rather go to the cinema than a night-club
I would rather go to the theatre than a night-club
I would rather go to bed than a night-club
I have special 'cozy' trousers I change in to when I get home from work
I can remember the theme tune to the old kids TV show 'The Adventure Game' but not what Beth told me to remember yesterday
My conversations tend to start with, "You know old so-and-so, you know... thingie..."
I think Russel Brand is a fashion victim and looks like a girl
I have a special painty stick that I use for stirring paint (it's an old wooden spoon)
I have shops and brands that "I will never be caught dead in"
I use the word 'daresay'
I have spare lightbulbs in my cupboard
I sometimes fart when I lift something heavy
I want some driving gloves
And a driving hat like my Granddad had
I want a shed...
On an allotment

Naff food I sometimes indulge in

2007-01-30T16:45:00.000Z

I'm a bit bored today so I'm currently wasting my time by participating in a thread on The Guardian's Talk boards called 'Secret naff foods you sometimes dabble in' and I gotta say, it's pretty enlightening. An amazing amount of people think Monster Munch are naff - when they're clearly brilliant and I had no idea so many of us out there love a good ol' corned beef hash. But I digress. This thread got me thinking about crap food and how I secretly (and sometimes not-so-secretly) indulge from time to time. So, sweet-smelling reader, I give you a list of my all time favourite shite foodstuffs I sometimes indulge in.

Chicken & Mushroom Pot-Noodle. (Start with the obvious)
Beef & Onion Findus Crispy Pancake. (I've not had this since college in truth but I do sometimes get the odd craving. I've spoken about these before too.)
Prawn or Chive flavour Primula. (Essentially cheese spread in a toothpaste tube)
'All Day Breakfast' in a can. (Wonderful when suffering with a hangover - truly)
Camp Coffee. (Coffee syrup with chicory - not 'gay' coffee in a John Inman way)
Butterscoth Angel Delight. (Seriously)
Liquorice Catherine Wheels. (Eaten whole or wound out depending on my mood)
Pork Scratchings. (Genius)
Smith's 'Scampi Fries' or the incongruously named 'Cheese Flavoured Moments'. (Need I say more? Probably)
And last but not least - the humble, but mighty, Scotch Egg.

Right, now that's done... I'm off down SPAR for a Ginster's Cheese & Mushroom slice.

The future is getting closer

2007-01-25T12:15:00.000Z

The birth of the ray-gun.

Apparently the U.S. Military has developed what is known as the 'Active Denial System'. They claim that it's a non-lethal way of making enemies surrender their weapons. The ray-gun projects an invisible high energy beam which produces a sudden burning feeling but is claimed to produce no side-effects. (Quite how you can 'heat someone up' without there being any side-effects is beyond me.)
The Flash Gordon style heat-ray is fired from the back of a modified Humvee up to a distance of 500 metres penetrating the target's clothes, suddenly heating up the skin of anyone in its path to 50C. Apparently (according to the Army tech-bods) it's enough to cause discomfort but no lasting harm.
It also looks alarmingly like something that Godzilla would stamp on or the laser cannon employed by the rebel forces on Hoth.

A pie-chart of my day

2007-01-23T16:35:00.000Z

Many Happy Returns

2007-01-08T16:33:00.000Z

Happy Birthday Mr. Bowie you crazy make-up wearing, music-making, genre-busting, bisexual, Iman-marrying, Labyrinth-starring, mis-matched-eyed, personality-adopting genius you. Here's to being 60 and still cool.

Ugg boots

2007-01-05T15:23:00.000Z

You look like you're a mental patient and you've gone out in your slippers. Stop it. In the words of Alan Partridge, "You look like you live on a ward."

2007

2007-01-01T00:43:00.000Z

Happy New Year to you all! Here's to a prosperous, healthy and entertaining year ahead.

She said 'Yes'

2006-12-29T11:26:00.000Z

I'm getting chuffin' married! Through a slightly foggy haze of the previous nights' revelries with Sophie & Simon, I asked Beth on Christmas morning to marry me, and she said yes. Actually she cried and asked me if I was serious (I think she'd kind of given up hope a bit) and then said yes and made me a very happy man. Unfortunately the ring was a few sizes too big 'cos the bloke in the jewellers planted the seed of doubt in my head when I told him that Beth's size is a tiny 'I'.
So now the easy part is over we’re now facing the prospect of months of magazine scanning, begging favours off friends and trawling t’internet for venues. Bring it on!

Dear God...

2006-12-20T10:47:00.000Z

These are priceless. I do hope they're genuine.

At last.

2006-12-18T11:17:00.000Z

I could never quite believe it when David Attenborough wasn't amongst the top ten of the 'Greatest Britons' poll of 2002 (mind you, Alfred Hitchcock wasn't even ranked) but now, thanks in some part I should imagine to the BBC's frankly awe-inspiring 'Planet Earth' series, Sir David Attenborough has been voted Britain's Greatest Living Icon. I can't think of anyone more deserving frankly. This is a man who has been on our screens for, what might as well be, ever. He's been an integral part of the BBC as both a presenter and as controller of BBC2 and director of programming for BBC Television in the 1960s and 1970s.
One of the true pioneers of the nature documentary he's given all of us in this country a reason to watch television (intelligent television, not x-listed celeb, trash television) and has introduced generation after generation to the wonders and fragility of the natural world. His infectious enthusiasm is matched only by his respect for all life on this Earth. Nice one David.

Wow that's drunk.

2006-12-15T14:55:00.000Z

This my fine bloggy friends, has to be THE story of the year.

Last night Kevin Craswell from Surrey had a few drinks, like so many of us do after work, and then he settled down for a nice peaceful sleep. Aaaaahh. As he drifted off, into the arms of Morpheus, as his waking thoughts receded and the blissfull dreams of a peacefull slumber overtook him a train passed inches from his head. You see Kevin had decided that his bed for the night wasn't to be situated in his bedroom or even a vacant park bench, oh no. That would've been way too easy for our Kevin. No, Kevin is an adventurous man, a spontaneous man, a hard-ball playing, dog-whipping, 'take me as you find me kind of a man' and he wanted to sleep on a railway track.
Apparently, according to the policeman guy, his foot was about, well - a foot, from the live rail (which carries approximately 750,000 volts) and he was using one of the rails as a pillow. Bless. How drunk must he have been! A passing train didn't wake him and nor did the Police helicopter. Now that's drunk.

Yey!

2006-12-15T11:10:00.000Z

I'm back in business. The FT block seems to have gone so blogging will resume imminently.

No posts

2006-12-15T07:12:00.000Z

The FT, where I work (if you can call it 'work'), has started blocking access to Blogger so, unless I can work out a way around it, I won't be able to post whilst I'm sitting at my desk, idly twiddling my thumbs and waiting for an image request to come in. Oh well, guess I'll have to do it in my own time then.

Mr. Gordon

2006-12-08T12:21:00.000Z

Can't think of anything to blog about today so I'll just make do with copying out this bit from a very famous and very cool film. First one to e-mail me with the title of the film wins... er... respect. I'll give you a clue: he's just a man, with a man's courage...

                  
M: Klytus, l'm bored. What plaything can you offer me today?

K: An obscure body in the SK system. The inhabitants call it Earth.

M: How peaceful it looks.

EARTHQUAKE

K: Most effective, Your Majesty. Will you destroy this Earth?

M: Later. l like to play with things ... before annihilation.

HOT HAlL

P: Green Mountain Airways requesting instructions.

CP: l hope Flash Gordon's had a great vacation after last season.

FG: Any problem, fellas?

P: Just turbulence. Nothing serious. Nothing you'd want to toss a third-down pass through either.

CP: Would you like to autograph this for my kid, Mr. Gordon?

P: Call Boston approach. lt may be smoother higher up.

DA: Do us a favor and leave them alone. They're busy driving the bus.

FG: lt's just a little turbulence. My name's Flash.

DA: l know.

On a lighter note...

2006-12-06T15:36:00.000Z

Spy bees!

Look at 'em, all regimented in their little plastic tubes. Apparently these little fellas have been trained to wave their proboscis around when they smell explosives or other dodgy chemicals. Now I'm all for technological and scientific advances but this one has me baffled. Sniffer dogs I get, they have extraordinary olfactory senses and 'enjoy' what they do. They are also pretty commonplace and it wouldn't freak anyone out to see a dog in, say, an airport. But bees? Surely people will run away from them when they come swarming towards you waving their proboscis (what's the plural of that I wonder?) around. How will the authorities know who's got the bomb and who's just allergic?
(I'm being foolish of course. This is a great discovery by science. Possibly.)

Anyhow, on to the second of todays madcap stories. This one's from good old Auntie Beeb and it's about couples who can now have a section of their wisdom tooth removed and have a wedding ring 'grown' from it. Now that's science! But hang on... what if the bone starts to grow 'into' your finger like some awful, low-budget horror film like my mate Steve said? Or what if your skin gets confused and thinks, "Wait a mo, there's bone there, and it's outside me. Better cover it up quick."
Apparently there's an exhibish in the atrium of Guy's Hospital which is just down the road from where I work so I'll go check it out and report back tomorrow. Sounds cool though. Here's a piccie.

Infantryman

2006-12-05T11:56:00.000Z

I'm one of the lucky people who has to commute into work and I've recently taken to using this 'extra time' to work my way through the non-time-sensitive bits of the Saturday paper. All those extra supplements and 'special reports' are a fine distraction from the ringing mobile telephones and quiet snores of my fellow passengers.
This morning however, my quiet contemplation was broken by a piece from Saturday's Guardian Weekend Magazine where letters and e-mails home from troops serving in Iraq had been published. I'm going to deliberately avoid talking about the War and I presence in Iraq because it's a huge argument and one that will rage for a long time to come. Suffice to say that my opinion on it is the same as some and different from others.
I'm recounting this because one particular letter made me cry. Seriously, it made me cry. I had to stare out of the window at grotty old London for ten minutes while I regained my composure (luckily the 09:34 to London Bridge is never busy). I rarely cry over things that others would deem to be 'sad' (something I mentioned here in my 'incontrovertible truths' piece) but this simple letter home from an infantryman to his wife and children got to me.

Summer 2006: an injured soldier dictates a note to his wife, knowing he is not going to survive.
To my most beautiful *******
I am sorry to say that I must break my promise and not come back to you. Jaz is writing this for me and he will hand it to you in person. We have only been married such a short time compared to most and I know you and the kids will miss me but please remember what I said about death. I will always be there with you, always looking after you and smiling at you always.
Tell the kids to look after you and each other and to be brave and that daddy loves them so very much and a HUGE kiss for them both.
To you my sweet lady I thank you for each moment we had together, the laughter we had and the love we have always shared. Remember me but don't mourn me, celebrate what we had. Got to go, I'll be in the mountains where I belong.
Your man Billy

Yum

2006-12-04T13:34:00.000Z

I've just had a Scotch-egg. I really like Scotch-eggs, though they do make me a little windy.

Telly

2006-11-29T21:42:00.000Z

I'm watching the BBC's new Doctor Who spin-off show Torchwood. It's not very good.

Tolerance

2006-11-28T13:14:00.000Z

Tolerance is great, tolerance is good, tolerance is necessary to create a stable and peaceful existence for all. Tolerance says, “I don’t understand your ways, maybe I don’t even agree with them or like them, but I know what’s required of me to keep things ticking over. I know I need to be tolerant and let you go about doing whatever the Hell it is you’re doing and maybe, just maybe, I’ll start to understand as things progress”. And, truth be told, this is possibly the best we can hope for. It’s impossible to understand everything and everyone it’s all most of us can manage just to be tolerant and forgiving and not an arse. We live in a diverse and varied culture and are surrounded by people of all faiths, creeds and beliefs and are bombarded with new information of all kinds twenty-four hours a day. How could we possibly be expected to understand all that we would like to. We can’t. Hell, I can’t even understand my nearest and dearest. I can sympathise with them and even empathise with their situations but I would never say that I understand.
But here’s my dilemma, tolerance seems to have become our default setting and maybe this should be changed. Tolerance for a religious belief that’s trying to find it’s way integrating into a dominant society is a good thing but maybe tolerance for those who blatantly disregard important issues is bad. I’m not advocating mass lynchings or the death penalty for those who drop litter but maybe being less tolerant as a society in certain areas could help matters in some way.
To be frank I’m not entirely sure what I mean here, it’s just too big an issue. But I do know that we should stop being so tolerant of those who willfully disregard all the proven information given and, whilst the rest of society are running around breaking their backs trying to become more environmentally sound, (often at great inconvenience), they (Clarkson, O’Leary) carry on regardless and not only wear their disdain for the cause like some kind of badge of honour but delight in standing up against the rest of us and deriding our efforts (Clarkson, O’Leary).
Think of that story about the Mum’s who feed their children chips and pies through the school railings because ‘little Tyler’ and ‘ickle Jordan’ didn’t want to eat the healthy stuff that Jamie & the Government had decided they should eat for their health and wellbeing. "It's their choice not to." screeched the Mum's. No it's not, they're at school you stupid waste of skin! Since when has school been about choice. Well maybe it’s time we started saying to these people, sorry but you clearly don’t care as much for your children as you’d like to think or, as is often the case, as you’d like us to think (because, and let’s be honest here, these types always want to shout and scream about how much they love their kids whilst they drive the five minutes to McDonalds in their 4x4 to get their chubby little blob of a kid a quarter-pounder with cheese for their dinner) and you are, in actual fact, harming them in more ways than the obvious. Maybe it’s time we looked these people in the eyes and, instead of trying to reason with them, instead of trying to mollify them maybe we should just say, “Clarkson (& co), you are a cunt.”

It's true.

2006-11-24T11:14:00.000Z

There really IS nothing better than a dog in a costume. These have all been submitted by various crazy folk over at the brilliant CuteOverload site.

23rd November

2006-11-23T17:33:00.000Z

On this day back in 1963, the first episode of the longest running science fiction show on television aired on the BBC and Doctor Who was born. The story titled 'An Unearthly Child' starred William Hartnell as the first Doctor and was transmitted the day after the assassination of American President John F. Kennedy.

To celebrate this factoid here are a few others regarding the 23rd November (today). Source: Wikipedia.

1654 - French mathematician, scientist, and religious philosopher Blaise Pascal experiences an intense mystical vision that marks him for life.
1863 - American Civil War: Battle of Chattanooga begins - Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant reinforce troops at Chattanooga, Tennessee and counter-attack Confederate troops.
1867 - The Manchester Martyrs were hanged in Manchester, England for rescuing two Irish men from jail.
1869 - In Dumbarton, Scotland, the clipper Cutty Sark is launched - one of the last clippers ever to be built, and the only one still surviving to this day.
1955 - The Cocos Islands are transferred from the control of the United Kingdom to Australia.
1990 - The first all woman expedition to the south pole (3 Americans, 1 Japanese and 12 Russians), sets off from Antarctica on the 1st leg of a 70 day, 1287 kilometre ski trek.
1993 - Rachel Whiteread wins both the £20,000 Turner Prize award for best British modern artist and the £40,000 K Foundation art award for the worst artist of the year.
2004 - Alex Ferguson takes charge of his 1000th game as manager of Manchester United Football Club.

Boris Karloff, Harpo Marx & Zoe Ball were born today in 1887, 1888 & 1970 respectively and the world lost Roald Dahl in 1990

TTFN FFF

2006-11-23T08:03:00.000Z

It's with sadness that I read yesterday the news that Craig Robinson is closing his Flip Flop Flying blog. For those of you that don't know, Craig essentially 'invented' the whole 'pixel-people' thing back on his website FlipFlopFlyin, (If you live in the UK then you've almost certainly seen his work on ads for the Guardian Music magazine, Esquire magazine and Reebok amongst others), and the blog he started back in April 2005 has gained a decent sized crowd of regular reasons, of which I was one. The FFF blog pretty much directly inspired me to start this wee little blog-o-mine as FFF made me realise that blogs don't have to be about anything in particular, like new music or advances in science, nor do they have to be exclusively editorial in content but can simply be about whatever you want to say.
So, TTFN FFF and all the very best to you Craig. I'm glad you're keeping the original site going and I look forward to lots more exciting stuff to keep me amused when I'm supping tea and munching on biccies. Cheers beardy-fella.

Finally. The future is getting closer.

2006-11-21T12:42:00.000Z

This is now 'the future' we're living in so I've been waiting patiently for many things that were promised to me in the past. The car that had tyres that could turn 90degrees to make parking easier; space food style meal-pills (though I'm in no particular rush for that); Marijuana-gin; self-drying clothes; a personal rocket pack; cds that don't scratch when someone nearby farts and various other trinkets that, as yet, haven't materialised. (Ooo, a Star-trek style teleporter too.) But it looks like the science-boffins out there have finally got their fingers out of their collective bottoms and started to sort things out. Look - wireless electricity! Brilliant.

33

2006-11-20T08:06:00.000Z

On Thursday Beth & I celebrated 33 years of me, firstly with a day out in London posing as tourists, then a lie in the following morning, a trip to see Bond and then a somewhat lacklustre Saturday night out in Brighton.
As usual Beth pulled out all the stops and made me feel so amazingly special and happy (she's damn good at this surprise thing) and she got me some pretty fine pressies too. On Wednesday I awoke in a minor panick when I realised her alarm hadn't gone off and I rushed about like an idiot for a bit until this wee little voice squeaked "Surprise" from somewhere under the duvet. Sleepily she explained that we were off to London to be tourists for the day and to take a trip on the London Eye (something I'd wanted to do for a long time now). Originally she'd told me that she had the Thursday & Friday off work so we could 'do stuff' and it was a lovely treat to get her for an extra day.
So, we wobbled off to London on the train to go see the wheel in all it's glory. It's a very impressive sight, especially when you come at it from the south and see it looming over the tops of the buildings. Anyhow, we grabbed our tickets and found out that, now we had them, we could take our 'flight' whenever we liked so we decided to take in another sight first. As it was my birthday Beth let me choose and, being a boy, I choose the Imperial War Museum. Which, in retrospect, wasn't a very 'birthday-ish' idea.
The Imperial War Museum is amazing, there's a tonne of tanks, planes and cannons in the foyer and then more intellectual stuff on the rest of the floors. Beth & I were blown away by the 'Trench Experience' (it even smells the way you'd imagaine) and we had a few tears in our eyes looking at all the evacuee memorabilia in the 'Children's War' exhibition. It's incredible to think this actually happened, can you imagine having to send your kids away from you for a long, unknown period? It must've been awful for all involved. There were some heartwarming stories, some funny ones (for quite a lot of London kids it was their first taste of the country) and some truly upsetting tales. There's a letter in there from the Admiralty informing a family that the transport ship their kids had been on had been torpedoed and lost with all hands. Imagine that, you think you're sending them away for their protection and then that happens. Those children went through so much. One equally disquieting aspect is the standard of spelling and grammar in their letters home. It's excellent. A five year old back then could write far better than a five year old can now I tell you. There's also a highly moving picture of a home-coming that brought us to the edge of tears again and a recreation of an old house in West Wickham, which is where I grew up (which was after rationing despite how I sometimes look).
To cheer ourselves up we went to go see Beth's mate's Laura's grandfather in the Victoria & George Cross exhibit. He received a GC for his daring rescue of his mate when their mine collapsed and flooded. His medal was there along with a smiley picture of him.

Anyhow, the London Eye is brilliant and well worth taking a trip on. You seldom (almost never) get to see London from on-high and it's fascinating to see what buildings look like from above. I had no idea Charring Cross station was so funky. London is such an eclectic mix and it spreads out away from you like spilt fluid creeping across a table. It's amazing. There were only six other people in our pod so we got to wander around inside taking in the view from all angles. The pace is leisurely (it takes a full thirty minutes to complete one rotation) so you're only aware you're moving when you look at the foreground, whilst the view just idly drifts by.

Chris meet us off the wheel and took us to a lovely local pub where we experimented with a couple of new, unpronouncable but lovely Czech beers and had a brilliant Macaroni Cheese before heading off back to the station and home. On the way Beth suggested we pop into the Market Porter for one for the road. When we got there however it turned out a load of my mates were there. It was brilliant. I was momentarily phased and spent ten minutes fiddling with my zip and going "Duhhhh... Ummmm." before regaining my legendary cool and drinking Black Sambucca until my head spun. All in all a very lovely day.

Because of the drinking we didn't haul ourselves out of bed on Thursday (my actual birthday) until around 2 and Beth cooked me kedgeree for brunch. Lovely. After that it was Bond time which was fantastic. What a great birthday. What a great lady.

Bond intros

2006-11-19T08:42:00.000Z

You may have noticed that I've not added anymore Bond intros, well there's a simple reason for that. The new Casino Royale intro is just so damn good that it's kinda blinded me to all the others. If you've not seen Casino Royale yet then I urge you to go (providing you like that kind of thing of course) if only to see the amazing, Saul Bass style graphics. Shame I can't post it up for you here really. Anyhow, maybe I'll have a look at the old intros again soon.

You know the name. You know the number.

2006-11-17T07:52:00.000Z

For my birthday my lovely lady pulled her second surprise of the week (more on the first later) and took me to the cinema where I witnessed something truly wonderful in the proper sense of the word. Martin Campbell, Neal Purvis & Robert Wade set out to rejuvinate the franchise with a more pared-down, back-to-basics approach and, I'm overjoyed to say, they've delivered the goods. The hype had told me that this was gonna be great, I'd always thought their choice of actor was inspired despite how the sheer volume of doubters and their pitiful calls for the film to be boycotted (I'd felt the same way when Christopher Ecclestone was announced as the new Doctor) and the whole premise of taking it back to the very first book was simply genius.
And you know what, it works. Casino Royale is, quite possibly, the finest Bond film I have ever seen. It's just incredible. Daniel Craig owns the screen (despite some truly scene-stealing moments from Judi Dench and frankly, if you're gonna loose scenes to anyone...) and portrays a grittier, more naive, more vulnerable and therefore more dangerous Bond than any actor before. He's arrogant and makes mistakes, he's flawed and mis-judges situations, when he fights it's realistic, scrappy, far from pretty and he bleeds - a lot. I'll get shot down in flames for this but, if Bond 22 is as good as this one then, I'm sorry Connery lovers, but Danny-boy could very well be THE James Bond. Read the early books and you'll see what I mean.

Anyhow, I'm not writing a lengthy review here, you should go and see it yourselves and make up your own minds but be warned - if you love the campness, the multitude of Bond girls, the quippy one-liners, the overblown effects, the gadgets and the invisible car bollocks then you may very well be disappointed. Funny really, my favourite Bond was always Moore so by my own argument I should've loathed this film but I didn't, I loved it.

Bond intros - 02

2006-11-15T08:19:00.000Z

Possibly the most famous Bond film and the start of the obsession with titles that have the word 'Gold' in them. Though they've yet to hit their stride and become unmistakably 'Bond', this intro in my mind is almost better the film. It's just genius. There's a foxy chick painted gold (echoing one of the Bond's most infamous and iconic moments) and scenes from the film are projected onto her.
What I love in particular is the fact that this was before the day of hi-tec computer wizardry so the model just had to sit there whilst being filmed, consequently you can see the occasional wobble. Nowhere more-so than at the very beginning when the music comes crashing in and her clasped hands appear on screen, with the villain of the piece, Auric Goldfinger, projected onto them, a shot that must've taken ages to set up properly, only to have her start twitching her thumb. I can see them all now cursing and swearing and re-setting cameras only to have some exec say "No. We're over budget as it is, and the paint's starting to flake. No-one will notice anyway."
Besides all this it features the unmistakable massiveness of Burley Chassis and her attention-demanding voice which, from here on in, would set the precedent and benchmark against which all Bond theme songs would be judged.

Goldfinger.

Bond intro - 01

2006-11-14T15:34:00.000Z

Despite the fact that I don't want to jump on the crazy, media-fuelled, publicity band-wagon, I thought I might celebrate the fact that it's Bond-time again and walk (nae - run) you through some of my favourite Bond intro sequences. The intro has formed a big part of the anticipation I experience surrounding a new Bond outing and, although the musical accompaniment has taken a desperately shite turn of late (Maddona? Cheryl Crow? Fuck off - We all know it should be Shirley Bassey or the Jones-meister.) they're still a microlight-flying, jet-pack-wearing, magnetic-watch abusing visual treat of the highest order. Oh how I wish other filums would pay this much attention to their opening. Mind you, if they did then Bond's would no longer be special so I'm kinda glad they don't.

So without further ado let's start at the beginning with the wonderful Dr. No.

As a graphic designer I love this sequence, it's just brilliant and stands up just as well today as any of the newer, effects heavy intros. I especially like the very beginning when the dot first appears to tell you it's a Harry Saltzmann & Albert R. Broccoli production, and I always chuckle at Connery's hat and his wee little hop he does when he spins to shoot his gun at us. What makes it all the more special is the fact that, as it's the first film, it runs to the Bond theme that we all know and love right up until about halfway in when it unexpectedly veers off on a tangent and goes all Mr. Tito-Madcap and his Magic Toga Band. Suddenly there's a bunch of midriffs cavorting around in some kind of semi-transparent, mono-tone, seisure-laden chaos and then, hang on, what's that? Isn't that three blind blokes wandering past the screen? What the Hell's going on? Brilliant.

Like the new look?

2006-11-14T12:38:00.000Z

I've upgraded my blog. Whadya think folks? Like it or hate it? I'm not sure how to get rid of that annoying line around the title though, guess I'll have to put my codey head on and have a look. Apparently you can subscribe to the blog now if you like. There's a wee linkie down at the bottom of the page.

They blew up her windmill!

2006-11-09T12:31:00.000Z

This is a really sad music video. I came across this yesterday whilst trawling YouTube. Poor old Noodle.

Nice windmill

2006-11-08T16:28:00.000Z

I love this track (despite disliking Damon Albarn and his strangled, wimpy voice) and this is such an incredible video I just have to post it. I'm sure most people out there have seen it already but, hey. The windmill seems so serene and peaceful floating up there in the clouds with little Noodle perched on the front.

TV

2006-11-07T11:43:00.000Z

I don't want to worry anyone but last night there appeared to be a show on television called 'Celebrity Scissorhands' where famous people train as hair and beauty experts. It was on the BBC too. What is happening in the World? Apparently Steve Strange, that waste of skin Darren Day and the bloke what used to be in 'Right Said Fred' are in it. God help us all.

The more I think about it

2006-11-06T16:23:00.000Z

The more I realise that I have to, nae - NEED to drive a dog-sled across the ice flows or frozen tundra. It's been a desire that's been with me for so long now that it's pretty much eclipsing every other dream I have, probably because it combines three of my most favourite things. Snow, dogs and the possibility of cuddling up in front of a fire with Beth.
After watching David Attenburough's outstanding Planet Earth - Ice Worlds last night I've spent most of the afternoon gazing at pages and pages of info and pictures about the Ice Hotel, dog-sledding safaris & the North Pole on the good ol' interweb. I've also been scouring said web for info on just who I can beat with a shitty stick in retaliation for the destruction of the Antarctic ice and, as a direct consequence, the loss of habitat of the beautiful polar bear. If you're out there reading this mister ice-destroying man, then you are a git and, if I ever find you, I will kick your arse six ways from Sunday.

Crazy spam

2006-11-06T12:05:00.000Z

Along with just about everyone else in the country, my junk e-mail folder seems to be bulging at it's virtual seams these days. The bloody thing is heaving with invitations to buy shares in obscure overseas companies, cheap software offers and the occasional 'Phishing' attack from Barclays, a bank I don't even use. (I don't mind the latter as I was starting to feel left out that I'd never been 'phished' when it was clearly on the increase.) But now it seems I've been targeted by some kind of DaDaist movement that have become jaded with the art world and have moved into... er... spam. I'm getting all manner of odd Haiku-esque e-mails that frankly make my head spin.
Here's a selection.

Subject: Hi Annemarie

Hi iamjustsendingthisleter.
How are you ? Call me.
what children

Subject: open-headed mill-ink

boulanger ×"

Subject: oil pan parlor car

"no, i should have turned in a moment."but when her mother was gone, jane would not be prevailed on to go down without one of her

Subject: mouth-watering palm grub

"i should like balls infinitely better," she replied, "if they were carried on in a different manner;

Todays funky robot is...

2006-11-03T14:59:00.000Z

Soundwave/Gnarls Barkley

I've no idea is this is genuine but I kinda like it. The bit with the little tape robot (don't know if he's supposed to be Rumble or Frenzy) dancing at the end is brilliant.

Nigel Kneale

2006-11-01T15:53:00.000Z

Nigel Kneale, the creator of the brilliant 'Quatermass' television shows has died aged 84. BBC News.

Hailed as the founding father of television sci-fi, Kneale pretty much invented the 'must-see' TV event, emptying the streets and pubs when the BBC aired 'The Quatermass Experiment' live in the 1953. The shows lead character, the alien-battling Professor Bernard Quatermass, was televisions first TV serial hero and went on to star in three more adventures.

In 'The Quatermass Experiment' the first manned space mission, sent into space by the British Experimental Rocket Group, crash lands back on Earth with two out of the three crew dead from mysterious circumstances. Once back on Earth the surviving astronaut slowly transforms into an amalgam of man and plant. 'Quatermass 2' followed in 1955 and featured an alien infection infiltrating Earth and turning people into zombies.
The third was perhaps the most successful of the series and in 'Quatermass and the Pit', Professor Quatermass finds himself involved in the discovery of a bizarre object at an archeological dig in Knightsbridge, London. As the serial progresses, Quatermass and his allies find that the contents of the object have a horrific influence over those who come into contact with it, and darker implications for the entire nature of mankind. The British Film Institute described the show as: "Completely gripping, under the guise of genre it tackled serious themes of man's hostile nature and the military's perversion of science for its own ends." Despite it's success, 'Quatermass and the Pit' was to be the last outing for the professor for twenty years.

Kneale also pre-empted the current fashion for reality TV shows with the creation of 'The Year of the Sex Olympics' in 1968. Here, society in the future is divided into two classes, the hi-drives and the low-drives. The low-drives are controlled by a constant broadcast of pornography that the hi-drives are convinced will pacify them.
In 1979 the BBC broadcast Kneale's modern horror story 'The Stone Tape', a terrifying tale concerning a group of electronic engineers who become fascinated by the supposed haunting of the historic house where they have set up their new research laboratory.

He returned to his most famous creation in 1979 and wrote 'Quatermass' for ITV. The serial starred Sir John Mills as the titular character and this time, after the destruction of a new space station, young people find themselves mysteriously drawn to an ancient stone circle in England where they believe they’ll be taken to a better place by a higher power. Quatermass discovers that they are actually being harvested by an alien race and must find a way to stop them.

In his illustrious career Kneale earned two BAFTA best screenplay nominations for his film adaptations of John Osborne's plays 'Look Back in Anger' and 'The Entertainer'. He worked on literary adaptations of 'Wuthering Heights' and most famously George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four', starring Peter Cushing. The latter case creating a television production which became almost as famous as the book itself, being labelled both horrific and subversive, provoking death threats and raising questions in Parliament.

He continued working until the late 1990s, writing 'Sharpe's Gold' and episodes of 'Kavanagh QC' and his legacy can be felt throughout the sci-fi horror genre.

Some incontrovertible truths about me

2006-10-30T06:27:00.000Z

I’m right handed.
I’m losing my hair on my head but have an astonishing amount of it on my tummy.
I cry at odd things on telly. The end of ‘King Kong’ makes me bawl but ‘Philadelphia’ left me cold.
I drink way too much tea.
I think I’m nice.
I always smile at dogs and babies.
I don’t believe in God but I do think that if he does exist, he’ll understand.
I grin like an idiot and sometimes chuckle to myself with happiness when I think of Beth.
All my boxers are black.
I only wear brightly coloured, stripey socks.
I name stuff. (Our car is Mabel, we have plants called Megan, Dave & Tony and the hoover is known as Steve.)
Whenever I’m feeling blue I whistle the ‘Terry & June’ theme tune and that picks me up.
I look good in pink.
I’ve owned four identical pairs of the same yellow trainers.
I love Doctor Who. (The show, not the man.)
Hearing Al Green’s ‘Let’s Stay Together’ always makes me happy.
My first crush came whilst listening Debbie Harry singing ‘Heart of Glass’ on my Dad’s record player.
I’m not fussed about football.
I love skiing and the noise of fresh snow crunching under my feet.
I’m a designer but I’d rather be a writer.
I quite like the Queen and I think Tony Blair has done what he thought best.
I prefer Jamie Oliver to Gordon Ramsay.
I think that anything with either a giant monkey or a midget in it is worth watching.
If I could choose my own family I’d have William Shatner as my Dad, Judi Dench as my Mum (my Mum actually reminds me of Judi), Hugh Laurie as my uncle, Kathy Burke as my auntie and Ant & Dec and Miranda Richardson as my younger twin brothers and older sister respectively.
I’m a bit of an environmentalist.
I don’t get the interest in ‘Arctic Monkeys’.
I like vodka but am developing a taste for whiskey.
I prefer white wine to red and French to ‘New World’.
I think cake is amazing.
When I enter my building I often try to leg it up the two sets of stairs to my door before the front door shuts.
I can’t wait for Christmas.

Food that hurts

2006-10-27T14:31:00.000Z

By rights this should be a misnomer but unfortunately there seems to be a surprising amount of foodstuffs on the market that are designed to injure, maim and, in some cases, even kill you. We’ve all experienced these at some point or another and I’m sure, like me, anyone that has now harbours a bizarre mix of deep seeded fear and frustration towards these products.
Before I go further I should point out that I’m not referring to the obvious culprits here, sure an apple full of strychnine coated razor blades will hurt if you try to eat it and a prawn and chicken kebab that’s been kept warm over a candle flame for a fortnight and sold from the back of a kitchen/bike in Old Street is sure to give you gip, but these things are clearly dodgy and anyone that eats them is, in truth, a massive idiot, or drunk. Possibly both. What I’m referring to here are the more innocuous culprits, food that looks, and indeed is, quite nice yet harbours a grudge against us.
The chief culprit of all this is the ticking time-bomb that lurks in pretty much everyone’s larder. I speak, (in hushed, frightened tones) of course, about Coleman’s English Mustard and this little fucker is a killer, believe me. But how can it be? It’s a condiment Ben. I hear you children. A condiment is a good, nae wonderful thing. It’s Heinz Tomato Ketchup, it’s Daddies Brown Sauce. It’s that funny pot of something smingey in an Indian restaurant that looks odd but is actually delicious when you slap it on your poppadoms. (Insert fruity, Babs Windsor-esque snigger here.) But no, English mustard is not one of these cheery food enhancers. It’s evil. Only us English, with our sense of apathetic sense of injustice and hatred of anything that becomes too popular, would invent a condiment that (though delicious and an absolute must on a sausage sarnie) makes your nose bleed when you eat it. If you make the slightest miscalculation in the amount when you’re applying it your eyes water, your throat closes, your nose starts to gush torrents of blood and your ears ring as tinnitus kicks in. Using it in a sandwich is the food equivalent of measuring out some kind of virus for use in a dirty bomb. I love the stuff, can’t get enough but man does it hurt.

One of the most dangerous foods out there folks, is a proper ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ masquerading itself as it does in that most beautiful, joyous and friendly form, chocolate. Now I was always under the impression that the Swiss were a peace-loving race. They remained peaceful throughout WW2 and they’re internationally known for their neutrality in both their political and financial stances. In fact their most aggressive creation so far has to be the Swiss Army Knife, or is it? Well, frankly no, it isn’t. The Swiss clearly have some kind of self-flagellation style need to punish themselves and larger issues with the rest of the World, hence the creation of the Toblerone. Never in all my life has something so pleasurable as a chocolate bar caused so much pain and unnecessary suffering. I mean Christ. How do you eat the bloody thing without literally becoming a bloody thing. You need teeth of steel to bit off one of those huge, pointy, rock hard triangles and even then the fact that it’s shaped like some kind of barbaric 15th century stabbing weapon means you’ll probably end up gauging your palette whilst simultaneously stripping the enamel off your teeth and shattering your central incisors. Come on Switzerland, you make such beautiful things. Your watches are hand-crafted creations of staggering beauty, your knives are revered for their simplicity and used the World over and your banking system has a spotless reputation for superior service and security. What did we do to you? What have we done to make you so angry you must unleash on us, this punishment.

But the damage the Swiss have done whilst we eat is nothing compared to that inflicted upon us by the Swedish and Findus. Findus are the undisputed kings of painful food. Stevie B and I were chatting about this the other day at work when he, quite innocently, reminded me of the horror that is the Findus French-Bread Pizza. This innocuous looking monster has blighted many a young student’s life and, again, its main weapon is it’s subtlety, disguising itself as a pizza, a food that pretty much everyone on the planet loves and Italy’s greatest invention, is a masterstroke of subterfuge. They look okay, sure they’re not really a pizza ‘cos they’re on half a baguette but then that’s quite clearly stated in the name, they’re cheap and quick and can be done in the microwave – a true bonus for the busy student. But STOP! For God’s sake stop young man. When you pop this thing in your mouth you’re leaving yourself wide open for a two-pronged attack. This meal will damage you on two fronts. First the topping, which is (thanks to the power of microwaves) white-hot, will weld itself to the roof of your mouth whilst it rapidly dissolves your palette and eats it’s way into your skull like the acid that spills from the damaged Alien in titular film. Whilst your reeling from the shock of this the crusty French bread base, which has been nicely crisped so that has the same consistency as powdered glass, will shatter on you teeth and send shards of spikey pain lancing through you as the firmly embed themselves between your teeth and gums. All in all it’s not a nice way to die.
But Findus aren’t content with killing us with pizza, oh no. They have another weapon in their arsenal. Whisper its name boys and girls, huddle together in safety for fear that it should be visited upon you. I speak, of course, about the Findus crispy pancake. Its name is synonymous with pain and anguish and yet they are still on sale. Why? Is this the outcome of some sinister plot developed by our government and the Swedish in which the student population of our fair nation are to be the subject of a random cull? These things are a living nightmare and are available with three fillings. Minced beef, three cheeses and chicken, bacon and sweetcorn and all are deadly.
Once cooked the filling reaches temperatures not far off that experienced on the surface of the Sun during a particularly violent solar flare and reach a consistency similar to that of superheated lead in its molten state. Quite what kind of energy source they’ve invented to produce this heat is beyond my imagination but I can’t help but think they could put it to better use. Supplying the World’s electricity needs for example or providing a cheap and eco-friendly alternative to the fuel used to power the space shuttle. I have an image of men in sealed, sterile rooms wearing white all-over body suits with plexi-glass hoods, attached by air tubes to a bank of computer monitors working away with their hands inserted in one of those contaminent-free boxes, carefully pouring an unknown but volatile liquid into a savoury crust parcel. It must be like handling liquid plutonium. I’m sure most of the unexplained explosions and disasters in the World are down to the poor handling of Findus crispy pancakes.

Room 101 (part five)

2006-10-26T11:51:00.000Z

Hard butter in Restaurants

Why? It's nice to be given a little bread roll or slice of bread when we sit down to a meal but why are we so often presented with a little dish of butter that has all the spreadability of alabaster? I mean why? Is it hard to provide spreadable butter? Is there so little space in the kitchen that you can't spare one tiny corner of the worksurfaces to put the stuff to let it soften? Why do I have to scrape away at the damn stuff as if I'm scratching a particularly awkward label off a present only to have it bugger up the bread and make it to that horrible mashing up thing when I try in vain to make it spread. If this phenomenon were limited to those mid-range but yet slightly shit restaurants I'd understand but it's not. Sure in a Little Chef or a naff pub you expect to get those odd little parcels of a close approximation to butter (even these rubbish places sometimes manage to get these butter-envelopes soft) but at a decent restaurant? No. Shouldn't happen. This is intolerable in a decent place. You're probably gonna pay a lot of money so why should you suffer the indignity of hard butter. It's even more galling when the bread you've been given is all fancy and rustic and delicious looking.
In the past I judged a restaurant's standard of care by whether or not they pestered you by asking if everything was okay, but now I've switched to the butter thing.

Lunch

2006-10-24T14:12:00.000Z

I've just had a coronation chicken bap (from a nice little sandwich shop on Borough High Street) that was so hot that it's made my ears ring. Or is it my mobile...

It was Bacon!

2006-10-24T09:21:00.000Z

Dear God I love Wikipedia. For years now (and I do mean years) I've been desperately trying to remember what the original third flavour of Monster Munch was and now I know! It was bacon. For those of you that don't know, Monster Munch are crisps themed on, well... monsters. They're a bit of a British institution in the snack world and I've yet to meet someone who doesn't like at least one of the flavours. Me, I like the roast beef flavour. Beth, she used to go daft for pickled onion but recently she's switched alliegance to flamin' hot. Women are so fickle.
Like a lot of snacks here in the UK they used to be bigger (and no, it's not just 'cos I'm bigger) and there were three different crisp 'designs' in each bag, now there's just a paw shape.
The range has been added to and changed throughout the years, though pickled onion and beef have remained constant. Apparently there was also a vanilla flavour introduced in 2004 which everyone hated. Now why would that be huh?

100

2006-10-23T10:52:00.000Z

I've just realised that this post is my 100th on this blog so, by way of a little celebration, here's a few facts about the number 100.

100 (the Roman numeral is C for centum) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101.

In mathematics one hundred is the square of 10 (in scientific notation it is written as 102).
The standard SI prefix for a hundred is "hecto-".
It is the sum of the first nine prime numbers, as well as the sum of two prime numbers (47 + 53), and the sum of the cubes of the first four integers (100 = 13 + 23 + 33 + 43). Also, 26 + 62 = 100, thus 100 is a Leyland number.
But perhaps this number is most important as the basis of percentages (literally "per hundred"), with 100% being a full amount.
One hundred is also an 18-gonal number. It is divisible by the number of primes below it, 25 in this case. But it can not be expressed as the difference between any integer and the total of coprimes below it, making it a noncototient.
100 is a Harshad number in base 10, and also in base 4, and in that base it is a self-descriptive number.

In science 100 is the atomic number of fermium, an actinide and 100 degrees Celsius is the boiling temperature of pure water at sea level

One hundred is also the number of years in a century
A 100 year old person is known as a centenarian
The number of pounds in an American short hundredweight
The number of subunits into which many of the world's currencies are divided; for example, one euro is one hundred cents and one Pound Sterling is one hundred pence
The number of verses in the pop song 99 Bottles of Beer
The denomination of the U.S. hundred-dollar bill with Benjamin Franklin's portrait; the "Benjamin" is the largest U.S. bill in print
The denomination of American savings bonds with Thomas Jefferson's portrait
The denomination of American treasury bonds with Andrew Jackson's portrait
The number of the first folder of photos in the DCIM folder created by a brand-new digital camera (or after a change of memory card if the camera is set to auto-reset numbering)
The number of tiles in a standard Scrabble set
In Greece, India and Israel, 100 is the police telephone number.
In United Kingdom, 100 is the operator telephone number
Hundred Days, aka the Waterloo Campaign
"The First Hundred Days" is an arbitrary benchmark of a President of the United States' performance at the beginning of his term
The number of poems in the Japanese poetry anthology Hyakunin Isshu
The record number of points scored in one NBA game, set by Wilt Chamberlain on March 2, 1962
100 metres, a racing distance
Historical years: AD 100 or 100 BC.

100 is the debut album of the Hong Kong band Dear Jane.

Source: Wikipedia

The evilest of ALL evil robots are...

2006-10-20T08:30:00.000Z

THE DALEKS

Yep, there's no denying it. When it comes to being down right evil these guys not only take first prize but they laser the other contestants, melt down the awards, burn the village hall to the ground, kill everyone nearby, and their families, and their friends, and their friends' families and then take off and nuke the entire village from orbit. They're bad. REALLY VERY BAD. They're also exceedingly awesome. They always scared the beeJesus out of me as a child and yet I was utterly mesmerised by them. What were they? What was inside them? Why were they so evil?

Genetically engineered to be free of any emotions except hate and obedience by Davros, chief scientist of the Kaled race, a Dalek is essentially a slimy, tentacled blob that's placed inside and symbiotically bonded to a powerful one-blobbed tank where they live out their psychopathic existence. It was back to this original idea that new Doctor Who executive producer Russel T. Davis & writer Robert Shearman looked when bringing the monsters back onto our television screens in 2005. There had been a long-running and very public battle between the BBC & the estate of Terry Nation (Terry had wisely set this up so that he could protect his beloved Daleks from becoming over-used and out of his control). Thankfully the BBC convinced the estate that they'd treat the Daleks with respect and Russel & Robert took the very brave decision not to change the Dalek's appearance and make him more modern but to rely on the essence of the thing and the story to make them terrifying again. And boy did they succeed. The episode's lone Dalek, when deprived of any contact with, or instructions from, other Daleks went on one hell of a major-league killing spree before committing suicide (in a surprisingly poignant scene) when faced with it's own loneliness.

You see that's what always made the Daleks so scary to me, it wasn't the design, that was always pretty basic and old-school, it was the their total disgust and contempt for anything that wasn't Dalek, anything that was different had to be destroyed. In the words of the 9th Doctor, Christopher Ecclestone, "They're the ultimate in racial cleansing."
Never was this better portrayed than in the series' finale when a squad of Daleks breaks off from the main body attacking the space station 'Satellite 5' to travel down to floor zero simply to massacre the assembled un-armed humans cowering there. They posed no threat and neither were they important but they were different and therefore had to die. Brutal.

These nightmarish wheelie-bins, with their death-ray, single eye stork, incongruous sink plunger and maniacal high-pitched, voice sent children the length and breadth of the country diving behind the sofa whenever they trundled out screaming and shouting for us to obey them or they'd exterminate us. And this was one of the things that make the Daleks so striking. Like the program that spawned them (and don't forget this show was aimed at kids) the Daleks are all about death. They shouted, schemed and killed. And they killed this a lot. One episode, Resurrection of the Daleks, (aired during Peter Davison's tenure as the doctor) has a higher body count than The Terminator with 7 people killed in the first minute of the first episode and a total of 60-76 dead by the close of the story. That's higher than all 5 Friday the 13th films combined! What made matters worse (or better - depending on your point of view) was that they were apparently indestructible. Just when it looked like the Doc had done away with them for good, up they'd pop again just as crazed and angry as before.

Davros in his travelling commode

Brainchild of Terry Nation, one of the writers of BBC's Doctor Who, the Daleks first appeared on our screens in 1963 to pit their wits against the first Doctor William Hartnell. They were an immediate success and consequently appeared again and again battling every incarnation of the Doctor (except Paul McGann's eighth) rapidly becoming his number one nemesis in the eyes of the nation. So much so, in fact, that Doctor Who without the Daleks became unimaginable. It'd be like fish without chips, C-3PO without R2-D2, Ant without Dec or Richard but not Judy. Such has been their impact on us here in the UK that they've managed something truly unique and moved beyond the television show and into popular culture to become recognisable even to those who have never seen Doctor Who. The name 'Dalek' entered the Oxford English dictionary and the Collins Dictionary defines it rather broadly as "any of a set of fictional robot-like creations that are aggressive, mobile, and produce rasping staccato speech". The name is also used in a metaphorical sense to describe people, usually figures in authority, who act like robots unable to break their programming. John Birt, the Director-General of the BBC from 1992 to 2000, was called a "croak-voiced Dalek" by playwright Dennis Potter in August 1993. They've been the subject of countless fan-films, have made appearances in adverts, starred in video games and even have many books and audio plays written about them. They even made it to the big screen. Twice.

So there you have it. The Daleks. The evilest robot of all.

I love pork scratchings

2006-10-19T17:32:00.000Z

I really do. I think they're great. Sure they're not very fashionable in the crisp fraternity and they're kind of frowned upon by anyone with a health-concious streak but at least they're honest. Crisps nowadays are desperately trying to convince you that they're not as unhealthy as you think. They're all 'Now only 2% fat', 'Made with polyunsaturates', 'baked not fried' and 'Look at me I'm a potato, a vegetable. You need me to live'. Whereas old porky is just there. He's not a fake and he tries to convince you of nothing. He's bad for you and he knows you know it. The pack I'm eating now has the weight (42g), the brand (B.N.) and the legend 'Finest Pork Scratchings'. Can you argue with any of that? No. Is any of it false or controversial? No. It also says 'Seasoned Pork Rinds'... which they are.

Todays evil robot is...

2006-10-17T14:27:00.000Z

MEGATRON

YEAAAAAAAH! Now we're talking. This guy is just brilliant in every way. Leader of the evil Decepticons he was ruthless, dangerous, violent and, in a departure from the usual cartoon villains that populated our televisions at that time, he wasn't a cowardly custard. No hiding at the back for this guy whilst he sent his troops in, no siree Bob. Cavalier with the lives of his men he may have been but he too got right on in there and gave the Autobots a damn good slapping. With his signature massive gun attached to his arm, sneering glare, massive height and cool raspy voice, Megatron was a sight to behold to a small kid.

For those of you who don't know (and where in the Hell have you been - in a parallel world you freakazoids!) the Transformers were a robot race who could change their appearance and transform into something completely different. Normally this was some kind of vehicle such as a car or a plane, but occasionally, as was the case with Megatron here, it was something totally unrelated like a gun. The Decepticons had been engaged in a civil war on their home planet of Cybertron with the heroic Autobots (who were a kind of resistance movement) which had raged for years and somehow or other they'd crashed here on a pre-historic Earth in their space-vessel the Ark. There they lay in a dormant volcano until an eruption kick-started the ships computer which set about waking up it's inhabitants and altering them so that they could transform into Earth vehicles as a disguise. From this point on their war raged on our planet as both factions tried to rid themselves of the other, the Decepticons looking for a fuel source called Energon with which to destroy the Autobots and re-take Cybertron, the Autobots trying to protect us and vanquish the Decepticons. Brilliant.

The Transformers burst into my young, sugar-crazed, daydream-soaked life every Saturday morning as a brilliant piece of marketing disguised as a cartoon and marked the beginning of the whole merchandising thing that's everywhere now. It certainly worked and all over the country kids would save up their pennies and pester the living daylights out of their parents to buy them Optimus Prime, Starscream or some other fantastic robot that transformed into a vehicle. Later it became a comic both here and in the U.S. (though ours was better). It was this format that introduced me to the wonder of comics and I have deep, halcyon memories of a wee dark haired, fresh faced kid called Benji sitting on the bottom step staring at the letterbox willing with all my soul for the postman to deliver the latest edition of the comic into my day. I even had a drawing published in it once and won a Bumblebee mini-Autbot toy. I still have it and every time I see it, it helps me step back onto the bottom of our stairs to sit next to that happy little kid.

I, like everyone I knew, was far from immune to all this rampant marketing and couldn't wait to get my grubby little, chocolate-stained, mud-encrusted mitts on a new Transformer. They were always pretty much the only thing on my Birthday & Christmas lists. Consequently I built up quite a collection of the toys but ironically (given how much I revered him) Megatron was never amongst them.

You see Megatron was not the best Transformer, he suffered from an inherent flaw that as a kid I had great difficulty with. He turned into a gun. Here was a 50-foot high robot that could apparently transform himself into a weapon that was only 20+ cms long. Even as a kid I could see this was a bit daft. Sentient robots from outer space transforming into jets and cars required a leap of imagination, a willing suspension of disbelief if you like. But robots that could transform AND shrink... no. Unfortunately this terrible niggle also tainted my love of Soundwave (who I did own and thought to be the greatest of all my Transformers). He was an awesome and beautiful robot that turned into a cassette player. Killer robot with big gun and cool monotone voice = loads of fun. Cassette deck with tapes = no fun.
Despite this obvious flaw Megatron still ruled the cartoon and comic roost as far as I was concerned and I was secretly pleased when the manutacturers of the toys, Hasbro, changed the toy's alternate mode (and therefore his characters appearance in the cartoon & comic) from a gun to a tank. Much cooler and more realistic thank you Mr. Japanese Toy Manufacturer.

Galvatron

Now something very strange happened to Megatron back in 1986 with the release of the feature length animated film that was Transformers the Movie. Megatron was 'killed' by the leader of the Autobots Optimus Prime. However, after a run in with Orson Welles in the shape of the giant, planet-devouring Transformer Unicron, Megatron was re-tooled, re-designed, re-voiced and sent back to kick Auto-butt in the shape of Galvatron. Megatron the baddest Transformer had been transformed. Galvatron was good, he looked evil enough, turned into a big ol' laser cannon, and sounded just like Leonard Nimoy but he just wasn't as cool.

In the upcoming 'Transformers' film (not to be confused with the brilliant animated film) Megatron again reprises his role as the Decepticon leader though his appearance has been changed drastically. A recent leaked concept image showed Megatron to be some kind of spiky, alien, cable-robot. Not cool at all. Thankfully, Frank Welker (who voiced Megatron in the original cartoon and is back to provide the voice in the new film) has said that his head has now changed. There's been a lot of fandom-based rumour that this design will be a pre-Earth Megatron and his appearance will change later in the film. I certainly hope so.

Megatron, the coolest, baddest and best evil cartoon robot of all time.

Todays evil robot is...

2006-10-16T14:24:00.000Z

The Cybermen

These tin-plated, Doctor-worrying, gold-avoiding menaces are one of Doctor Who's most persistent enemies, turning up again and again to meddle with the universe, terrorise people, harass the Doc and generally bugger things up for all and sundry. I love these guys, they're damn near perfect in the evil-robot stakes and, again, as a child I would've swapped my entire Star Wars figure collection (except for Boba Fett, Chewie and that bum-faced one of course) to be one.
The Cybermen are in actuality a cyborg race originating from Earth's twin planet Mondas (left that one of the Guardian's free 'Our Solar System' wall chart didn't they) who were originally humanoid but took to 'upgrading' themselves by adding mechanical parts in a quest to reach perfection. Part of this upgrade was to ditch emotions and become fault-free. They then set about spanning the universe smashing anyone who got in their way, conquering whole worlds and upgrading their inhabitants. They'd march around screaming, "Resistance is futile." (Sound familiar to you Trekkies out there?)

The design of the Cybermen has changed throughout the years from a kind of mummified man with an accordion on his chest through to blokes in silver jump-suits with bit's of hoover attached to the legs, the '80s saw the Cybermen involved in pure bacofoil silliness (but with a cool helmet) but thankfully the recent redesign made them more mechanical, imposing and terrifying than ever before. Throughout all these changes the scariest thing about a Cyberman to me as a kid was always the uniformity. They all looked, sounded and acted the same. Sure the Cyber-leader always stood out in some minor way by having a big, see-through head showing his brain or black tubes on his helmet but they were essentially all equal and they acted like one vast machine army.

During the run of the original show, the Cybermen were pretty much indestructible but for one weakness, gold. Yep, like me, they hated gold. It clogged up their airways you see and they couldn't breathe. This started out all fine and dandy as a quirky Achilles-heel but then the '80s came along and (as always happened in the '80s) everything went a bit shit. Suddenly the Cybermen were being killed off left, right and centre by gold-tipped arrows, guns that fired gold powder and even gold coins. The vicious, evil, mechanical crazy men of the universe were even defeated by a weedy-maths-boffin-child when he scratched his gold medal against one's chest. (He died himself though when the spacecraft he was on crashed so it's not all bad.) It took Russel T. Davies' new Doctor Who to redress the balance and get them back to their arse-kicking glory days. Gone was the silly gold allergy, gone were the hoover based outfits but the robotic, nightmarish, all alike, kill-happy, emotion-free, freaky voiced monsters were back and well and truly kicking bottom. This time they were back to their scary selves, terrifying Earth in a parallel universe and then later in our universe where they even got to square up against the Daleks.
Awesome.

Todays evil robot is...

2006-10-13T10:18:00.000Z

The Terminator

Well, her certainly looks the most evil-roboty of all the evil robots so far doesn't he. He was a bit of a sod too when it came to butchering people. The Terminator is essentially a superior killing machine of great strength and durability encased in living flesh so that he can kill better. The resultant cyborg is sent back to the '80s by Skynet (a kind of man-made, computer, uber-intelligence that rules Earth in the future) to kill Sarah Connor who will eventually have a child that will lead the resistance to the machines back in the future. Still with me? Good, well hang on tight 'cos this is where it gets bumpy. Back in the future, John Connor (Sarah's son) learns that Arnie has been sent back to kill his mum before she has him and sends back a bloke to stop the Terminator. Now this bloke (Michael Biehn) is clearly not much of a match for the robot/Arnie death machine and he soon gets the chop but not before he's had a bit of nooky with Sarah Connor thus getting her preggers with the bloke who sends him back to protect her. Still there, well hold on...

Eventually Sarah traps Arnie and the film ends with the future looking rosy because her baby is fine and the Terminator got squashed flat. Or so it would seem...

In Terminator 2. Judgement Day it's revealed that Skynet (remember them) actually came about when the remains of the Terminator were found in the machine room where Sarah rather stupidly left him lying around for any well meaning but misguided, techno-genius to find. It also turns out that Skynet, knowing they'd failed, sent back the even more serious and fiersome T-1000 (who's a liquid metal terminator and can turn his arms into big, fuck-off knives and stuff) to do in John Connor in his bratty, American, teenage, motorcycle riding, parent-annoying years. John Connor in the future knows this however (by virtue of it being an historical fact to him) and sends back a second protector in the form of a captured and reprogrammed Arnie-style terminator. I don't know about you but just typing this load of old nonsense is doing my swede in.

Naturally old iron-balls Arnie wins and they manage to stop the creation of Skynet too which puts a smile on everyone's faces.

But hang on a minute. Who's that foxy, naked chick that's just materialised out of thin air in a ball of lightning and smoke? Why it's Terminator 3!

Now Skynet is clearly not a happpy puppy (computerised puppy) and he's knocked up this new experimental Terminator (the T-X to be precise) who can create proper weapons, like laser guns and flamethrowers, inside of herself and he's despatched her through time (must be choca-bloc in that ol' time macine room by now) to locate and kill John Connor, his future wife (who's now running about with him) and his lieutenants. But Arnie's back again to stop her. To add yet another wriggle to the crazy, melon-twisting plot Arnie has been sent back this time not by John, but by his wife! Arnie reveals this particular nugget of craziness to John Connor and then goes on to tell him that he was reprogrammed by his missus shortly after he himself killed Mr. Connor. It's all going to Hell in a handcart now isn't it.

In a rather melancholy end to the trilogy, John Connor is tricked by his bird's Dad (who's heading up the Skynet project) into trapping himself in a Cold War-era VIP fallout shelter called Crystal Peak, by making them believe that it is where the Skynet mainframe is located. The nukes fly and the trilogy ends with a glimmer of hope as John takes up the mantel of leader that destiny has marked for him.

Now, for anyone not in a coma, here's a little treat. It's the very first terminator as seen in T3. He's called the T1-8 and I kinda like him.

Todays bollux robot is...

2006-10-12T15:14:00.000Z

He's a Star Wars droid and he's called BOLLUX!

Todays evil robot is...

2006-10-12T08:10:00.000Z

RoboCop 2

When a deranged, junkie, gang-leader is killed in a shootout with the Police and RoboCop, the nefarious Omni Consumer Products (OCP) have his brain put inside their new prototype robot that they want to use to replace RoboCop. RoboCop2 was bigger, stronger and cooler than RoboCop, he had a huge fuck-off gun, big cutty-spikey hand things, a little grabby claw thing that he broke his bird's neck with, an adiction to drugs and a Jesus complex. This guy was B.A.D. He smashed up a scale model of the city (which must've taken some poor sod ages to build) and then went on a rampage blowing up all and sundry just to get to a canister of jelly (drugs apparently) whilst simultaneously kicking RoboCop six ways from Sunday when he got in the way.
RoboCop still beat him though. And ED-209 still looked cooler.

Todays evil robot is...

2006-10-11T14:01:00.000Z

The torture droid 8D8 from Star Wars Episode 6: The Return of the Jedi

This guy isn't very nice at all. I mean he tortured that poor little box-robot thing. You know the one, he said 'Kronk'... something or other and was in Star Wars in the Jawa's sand-boat-tank-crawler thing. Well anyway, he tortured him by burning the soles of his feet with what looks like an oven grill after he'd spun him around for a while. You could here him screaming and begging for mercy and everything. I felt so sorry for the wee little robot, the way the hot element came down on his metal feet and... hang on... isn't he a robot?

Todays evil robot is...

2006-10-10T08:15:00.000Z

The A.B.C Warrior from Judge Dredd the movie

Again technically not an 'evil' robot as he was merely a soldier robot created to serve in the army until Rico Dredd (who's Judge Dredd's evil twin with a slight beer-gut - though how your supposed to know this when he doesn't have the tell-tale goatee beard that all evil twins have I don't know) picks him up in Ian Drury's junk shop and activates him. It's pretty cool the way that the robot's pistons fire-up as he gradually starts to move, steam hissing out of his joints and eyes glowing. It's especially cool the way he asks for his status and then growls "WARRRR". Later in the film he machine guns a load of Judges in a street and tears the arms and legs off that bloke from 'Das Boot', Jurgen Prochnow. He got his cumupence though when the weedy comic-relief character pulled all the wires out of the back of his neck. (Out of the robot's neck, not the weedy comic bloke.) All in all, not a very nice 'bot. Though I love his lopsided jaw... kinda makes him look like he's chewing or maybe he's just had a stroke.

The A.B.C. Warriors first appeared in the U.K. comic 2000 A.D. and this particular bad-boy is a dead-ringer for the comic-strips lead character Hammerstein, (though this film version is missing his trademark hammer hand).

Todays evil robot is...

2006-10-09T07:56:00.000Z

Ash

Ash (played by Ian Holm) was the science officer aboard the Nostromo in Ridley Scott's Alien and was indirectly responsible for the deaths of all the crew except for warrant officer Ellen Ripley. Ash begins the film as a quiet and mild-mannered man though Ripley has her suspicions about his true intentions. Suspicions that turn out to be well founded when it's revealed, in a very graphic and shocking way, that Ash is in fact an android and that he sweats milk.

Up until this point things had been pretty plain-sailing for this happy-go-lucky space misfits bunch. Believing that 'Mother' (the ships computer) had awoken them from their hypersleep to carry out a routine check of an unidentified signal apparently eminating from a vessel on the surface of a nearby planet, they toddle off all smiley and curious to check it out. Then - BAM - it all goes tits up. John Hurt gets a squiggley, clawy moster on his face that lays and egg in him. John bursts whilst at dinner and a penis with teeth pops out of him and scuttles off. Sweet. The titular alien grows bigger and nastier deep in the bowels of the ship until he gets hungry and starts wolfing down the crew in some of the most tense and scariest scenes ever commited to film. I used to have nightmares about being stuck in an airshaft with the damned thing like Dallas.

Whilst all of this is going on Ripley discovers that Weyland-Yutani Corporation (yet another nefarious, evil mega-company that always crop up in this type of film) knew about the possible danger and instructed Ash to bring the creature back to Earth no matter the cost. Special Order 937 instructed Ash that all the crew were expendable, from that point on everything he did he did to protect the alien organism. Now the crew have an alien, a missing cat and a dodgy robot to deal with. It never rains eh...

One of the finest scenes in the film comes when Ripley discovers what Ash is up to and Ash tries to do away with her by giving her a good slapping and then, in a very Freudian gesture, tries to kill her by forcing a rolled up magazine down her throat. Luckily Lambert & Parker (two other members of the crew, not a passing accountancy firm) are on hand to help and Parker knocks Ash's block off revealing that his innards are in fact full of mayonnaise, spaghetti and fishing floats. Human he 'aint.
Ash rolling around the room vomiting white fluid whilst 'spazzing-out' and attacking Ripley, Parker & Lambert is one hell of a gruesome scene and when they switch him back on to question him about the alien's possible weakness, his evilness and lack of consideration for the crew become apparent when he calmly says "I can't lie to you about your chances, but (smirking) you have my sympathies." Brilliant.

Todays evil robot is...

2006-10-06T10:30:00.000Z

The Replicant Roy Batty from Bladerunner

In the gritty, neon-drenched, dirty, slightly knackered not-too-distant future vision of director Ridley Scott, Roy Batty was the leader of a group of Nexus-6 type replicants that escaped to Earth from the 'off-World colonies' to confront their creator Eldon Tyrell and force him to extend their lifespanbeyond the programmed 4 years. The replicants are artificial beings created to carry out dangerous or degrading work (one of the group is labeled a 'basic pleasure model') and their short lifespan is a failsafe against their developing unstable emotions.
You see replicants are illegal on Earth because of an earlier rebellion and so Bladerunners (part of a specialist Police unit) are used to track them down and 'retire' them. Harrison Ford is the Bladerunner Rick Deckard who's out to see off Roy and his gang. Bladerunner is truly a visually stunning film though it is a little 'weighty' and confused the Hell out of me the first time I saw it.

Rutger Hauer is perfectly cast here as Roy, I mean look at him - he's got the whole scary eye thousand-yard stare thing going on AND he's holding a dove (the symbol of peace) despite having just kicked the living-shit out of Mr. Ford. Despite being a crazy dude his plight is a very human one, he has four years of life and wants more, he has more to see, more to do who wouldn't want to live? His final words were so very moving, "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams, glitter in the dark near Tannhauser Gate. All those... moments will be lost... in time... like tears... in rain. Time... to die."

Bye Roy. I kinda liked you you crazy, cripple-killing, eye-ball playing, Head-squashing, Harrison-kicking madman you.

Todays evil robot is...

2006-10-05T08:58:00.000Z

K.A.R.R. from Knight Rider.

K.A.R.R, or Knight Automated Roving Robot, was created by Knight Industries and was the prototype for Michael Knight's vehicle K.I.T.T. but when his CPU was installed a progamming error made him nasty and intent only on self-preservation. He appeared in just two Knight Rider shows, though I only remember one particular piece of one show when K.I.T.T. & K.A.R.R. had a game of 'chicken' on a bridge resulting in K.A.R.R. swerving off said bridge and generally knackering himself up so only his CPU voicebox-come-graphic equaliser doodah remained winking away at the end of the show. I seem to remember K.A.R.R. being exactly the same vehicle as K.I.T.T. but slightly shinier. He also had a more funky voice box and a deeper (and therefore 'eviler' voice) than K.I.T.T. which was voiced by the brilliant Peter Cullen who also voiced Optimus Prime.
Here's a sample of his voice.
There was also an evil truck called Goliath in Knight Rider driven by an evil David Hasselhoff (God, can anyone dare imagine such a thing?) but I can't remember if there was anything special or computery about Goliath.

Open the pod bay doors HAL

2006-10-04T12:07:00.000Z

Just found this brilliant clip of HAL being stubborn and scary.

Todays evil robot is...

2006-10-04T08:31:00.000Z

HAL 9000

HAL 9000 needs no introduction really but for those of you who aren't familiar with this little wonder he was the super computer aboard the Discovery One in Stanley Kubrik's masterwork 2001: A Space Odyssey. HAL was embued with human personality traits and a very soothing voice and for the most part was a kind of benign colleague of massive intelligence and friend to the other crewmembers Frank Poole & Dave Bowman. Unfortunately HAL wigs-out and starts bumping people off. What makes HAL's murderous streak so fascinating however is the fact that he's so lifeless in appearance (he's just a big red lens) yet his voice is so calm and soothing. HAL is so practical and methodical in his nastiness it's very disquieting. When he uses an empty EVA Pod to cut the oxygen tube on Frank Poole's spacesuit it's done in total silence and the image of Poole scrabbling around in desperation, trying to fix it before floating lifelessly off into space, has stayed with me ever since I first saw it.
Anyhow, Poole gone HAL now switches off the hibernation pods of the scientists on board and locks Dave Bowman out of the ship when he goes to retrieve Poole's body. Bowman forgot his helmet you see and therefore can't use the emergency airlock to get back in. Silly spaceman. He does get back in however by firing himself like a bullet into the airlock and bouncing around for a bit. After that he goes inside HAL to switch him off. Inside HAL is truly beautiful and one of the most memorable sets I've ever seen. He's all shiny and winkie-lighty inside and ickle Dave Bowman turns back and forth all floaty inside him buggering about with switches in a way that would definitely invalidate the warranty if it were my laptop for example. Apple 'aint gonna be taking HIM back now Dave that's for sure.
It's actually very moving as HAL 'dies' and reverts to his early programming singing Daisy Bell more and more slowly until. Pop. No more HAL. Bye HAL.

But wait a spacesuit popping, scientist killing, children's song singing minute, what's that coming over the horizon? Why it's that bloke from Jaws and Helen Mirren in 2010: Odyssey Two. There here to find out what happened to Dave Bowman & co. so they reboot HAL and it turns out HAL wasn't a naughty, naughty lens just a very confused one. You see his primary programming meant he had to divulge all important knowledge 'bout his mission to the crew but he'd been ordered to keep it quiet. This sent him into a bit of a lather and he'd reasoned (quite logically) that if there were no one to keep the secret from then everything would be alright. So he killed 'em. See, logical.

"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."

Todays evil robot is...

2006-10-03T07:33:00.000Z

Hector from Saturn 3

Kirk Douglas, Farrah Fawcett (why is she named after some trousers?) on a space-base with a dog. Harvey Keitel in a space suit and helmet straps himself into a chair and opens a big space ceiling thingie and a bloke gets sucked out into space where he explodes(?) upon hitting some bars. Harvey fancies Farrah. Kirk doesn't like Harvey. Harvey builds Hector. Hector is strange and has binoculars for eyes. Hector stamps on dog. Harvey puts his brain in Hector. Hector fancies Farrah. Everyone rushes about a bit. Farrah looks skinny (presumably 'cos of all the running). Kirk tries to destroy robot with his chisel-like chin. Blah, blah blah. Load of ol' rubbish. Good robot though.

Todays evil robot is...

2006-10-01T13:14:00.000Z

Mark-13

This one is a little out of left-field I grant you as he's from a largely unseen British sci-fi/horror film called Hardware. Earth in the 21st Century is a desolate, pollution-choked, radioactive wasteland (isn't it always?) and a traveller with some kind of robot hand, finds some bits of old droid lying about the desert and take them home to his bird - as you do. (At this point I recall a cameo byLemmy from Motorhead as a river-cab driver, odd huh?) She's a sculptor you see and these bits o' dodgy looking robot (with a very scary head) would make a very nice ornament for the lounge wouldn't you agree? No, not really. They're all pointy and jagged and were clearly made to be up to no good not perching on a mantel piece. Anyhow missey the artist sets about painting the head, has a quickie in the shower with her fella and then pops off to bed while the obviously nasty robot sculpture sets about reconstructing itself utilising various household utensils. Surprise sur-bleedin-surprise.
It all gets nasty and MARK-13, as he's known, goes postal and it's original program activates. You see it's original job wasn't as a piece of crap artwork but a government built population control device designed to kill anything and anyone who gets in it's way. Nice. So, not being one to go against the grain, this is what it does. It chases the girl and butchers her pervy neighbour, then it does in her fella with the robot hand when he comes home. "Hi honey, I'm home. What's for NNNNNNNNNNNNYAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHH!" - Buzzzzzzzz, chop, kill, stab. Then it finishes someone off in a lift for good measure. Apart from that I can't really remember how it turned out. I'm pretty certain Jill (the sculptor) manages to escape but I've no recollection of how. All in all an odd film. Oh, and Iggy Pop was in it too apparently.

Todays evil robot is...

2006-09-29T19:55:00.000Z

GORT from The Day the Earth Stood Still

Technically speaking this fella isn't evil as he was merely the robot bodyguard of space traveller Klaatu who, in 1951, came to Earth in the kind of shiny, shiny flying saucer that bugs rednecks in the 'Deep South', flees the scene of cattle mutilations and drags unsuspecting American idiots inside it's shiny, shiny interior to be anally probed. He'd come with one mission, to warn us against continuing on the path we'd chosen as a species. We were savage, we were warlike and aggresive, we were destroying our very planet and we refused to wear Baco-foil jumpsuits and colanders on our heads. Most of which is particularly apposite at the moment.
Now Klaatu, being a dude from outer space an' all, clearly hadn't been watching much Earth TV 'cos when he stepped out of his saucer and announced to the US Army gathered around that he came in peace, he got shot the silly spaceman.
Anyhow, back to the awsome GORT. He never said anything he just stood there behind Klaatu like a giant armoured sentinel looking all cool and immovable - which he was, until that is, Klaatu got shot. Then he got all vaporisey on their collective arses and lasered all the soldiers' guns. He didn't kill any of them, he just destroyed the weapons. Even the tanks. Brilliant. A pacifist destructo-bot.
I always loved the way his visor opened revealing a slit that pulsed brighter and brighter until 'whummmm...phzzzz'. Everything gets vaporised. Awesome. Go GORT!

"Klaatu barada nikto"

Fantastic Maximillian clip.

2006-09-28T08:07:00.000Z

Refering back to my earlier 'Evil Robot' post about Maximillian from The Black Hole, I've found this brilliant clip of the tin-plated badass doing his drilly-death thing on Anthony Perkins.
Enjoy.

Todays evil robot is...

2006-09-25T20:39:00.000Z

The Cylons from Battlestar Galactica

These evil, malicious and ruthless beauties graced our screens back in the late '70s & early '80s. As the backbone of the Cylon Alliance they battled humanity and pursued the Galactica (and it's rag-tag fleet of ships) across space with nothing but destruction on their tin-plated minds. As a kid these bad-boys were just the absolute best and I would've given anything to be one. (I had very simple ambitions as a child, I just wanted to be an awesome robot and kick ass.) They were brilliant in their super-shiny armour with their one red eye sweeping from side to side like K.I.T.T. in Knight Rider and their jarring, metallic, monotone voices were plain scary. They flew the second best enemy spaceships (after the Tie-Fighter of course) and they were lead by some kind of bobbly headed monster thing who sat on a huge chair in a massive, featureless vault. Brilliant.

Nowadys in the new Battlestar Galactica they're VERY different. Now they've been adapted to look and act like us so they can infiltrate the Galactica crew. This poses a very difficult problem. On the one hand the old Cylons were just amazing in everyway and by rights every red-blooded male fan of the original show should be spitting feathers at the mere idea of changing 'em. Trouble is, they now look like this.

Do you see the dilemma?

"By your command."

Todays evil robot is...

2006-09-22T11:33:00.000Z

Box from Logan's Run.

For those of you out there that haven't seen Logan's Run it's essentially a film about mankind's future where we live enclosed in vast, domed cities. No-one is older than thirty (thanks to an accepted cull disguised as a spiritual ceremony of re-birth), but some seek to escape to the outside world and the mythical place known as 'Sanctuary' and these 'runners' are pursued by the Sandmen who police the city. Logan 5 (an ex-sandman) and Jessica 6 (Jenny Aguter) escape and run into Box in an ice cavern where food is frozen and stored for the city. Box is the robot who runs the 'freezer' and appears kindly at first. It soon becomes apparent however, that Box has malfunctioned and has been killing runners who come this way, he also wants to freeze Logan and Jenny into a permanent ice-sculpture for his collection. A fight ensues and Box is left trapped. Poor Box.

Richard's on the mend

2006-09-22T10:21:00.000Z

BBC News. I hope he goes on improving. As co-presenter Jeremy Clarkson said, "He's lucky, he'll live." Thoughts to his wife & kids.

Woke up this morning

2006-09-21T06:46:00.000Z

to some very sad news. BBC News. Richard Hammond, pint-sized presenter of BBC's Top Gear and perssonal favourite of the misses, is critically ill (but stable) in hospital after crashing in a rocket-car whilst filming for the show. A ROCKET CAR - Go Hammond! I sincerely hope he's okay.

Todays evil robot is...

2006-09-20T10:13:00.000Z

Maximillian

To me the star of Disney's brilliant kids sci-fi film 'The Black Hole'. The silent, deadly killer loitered menacingly in the background of the mysterious space vessel the Cygnus until called upon by Dr. Hans Reinhardt to despatch Anthony Perkins with his spinning razor-claws. I'll never forget the way Perkins tries desperately to defend himself by holding his journals in front of him only for Maximillian to advance unhindered and drill through them, scattering shredded paper until Perkins screams and drops to the floor. Brilliant. The image of Reinhardt 'entombed' within the body of Maximillian standing in-front of a Hell-like, firey background is one of my favourite scenes from a sci-fi film.