I hate these adverts

Peugot, Jaguar, Gilette... yep, these and many more are PANTS and OFFENSIVE.

...and yes I am shouting.

They're not ironic; nor can they appeal solely for their lush photography.

Bleurgh.

Don't ya know Time-Travel is all the rage...

This news dated 3 Feb, found via the usual reliable source (5 Feb), is both thrilling and disturbing.

Thrilling, 'cos, well... you know, I love my Scottish boys and this one had me first (that isn't meant to be... oh heck, what I mean is... I liked him first). Anyway, it is a little thrilling because it's like some weird kind of time-looping overlap between him and the current DW. And I love to see good people getting work.

But it is also deeply disturbing because I hate that TV has to jump the bandwagon, mostly because such stuff ends up being second-rate (and lord knows neither deserves that). Part of me just wants to scream "NOOOO!!!!" and plead waiting for something else, better, more deserving to come along.

Will I watch it if this goes ahead as discussed in the Mirror? 'Course I bloody well will!

Did I say how excited I am about Saturday?

I am so excited about going to the blogmeet! I am plotting the clothes to pack and wear, wishing I already owned a digital camera to be able to take shots and see them on the day, and steeling myself for the hairdying (yes, I know I should have done this ages ago but it will at least be more red if I do it closer to the day).

**CLAPPING WITH EXCITEMENT!!!!**

And stripes... I will be wearing stripes...

Blog of the day: Anna's place

Ah, the lovely Anna! Just reaching the 100 post mark having spoken with wit and enthusiasm about so many cultural icons and topics close to my own heart (not least of course a certain sci-fi programme...)

Here she raises the question of scottish accents. Cannot think why that is a topic that appeals to me: no sirree.

It can even make me forgive her for watching This Morning. Hmm... if anything gives away that she is a student...

Forest footballers

Earlier this week, Cloud was at the Nottingham Forest ground for a meeting (the Council buildings are just across the road from the City Ground). Anyway, he reported that whilst over there a number of the Forest players were arriving - for training he assumed. Apart from one player who drove a BMW (I think), everyone turned up in sponsored Golf cars. And pretty much all of them carried nothing more weighty than a titchy Louis Vuiton toiletries bag (possibly this one?).

Presumably, any 'golden boots' of Forest are too valuable to be allowed out of the grounds with the footballers.

Cloud's description of them was simple: "poseurs". Frankly, for a team who is still someway off the pace for making the playoffs to return to the second division, it's just bonkers to be this precious about themselves. And sorry, I'm not buying any of this facile 'Championship' nonsense: they are currently in the third division of English football whatever they want to call it.

David Lavery moves to Brunel University

Lavery, for those who do not read Slayage on a regular basis, is currently Professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University. Come September 2006, he will become Chair of Film and TV at Brunel University.

For some reason, it greatly pleases me to think of one of the chieftains of popular television analysis coming to the UK.

Pathetic

Me, that is...

I wanted to apologise for not being around as much as I like to be in the hope it will spark me into being prolific. It may work....

Sci-Fi Citations

Browsing the Beeb's website for Balderdash and Piffle, I came across this link which is just fabulous! If you have a geeky desire to explore the origins of sci-fi terminology then this is the site for you. If you can dredge from your reading knowledge antedating information on terms used, then you will be much valued by this site and by extension the Oxford English Dictionary.

Go on: you always wanted to be an etymologist...

Patient care

Marie makes a cracking point.

Blake Ritson in The Romantics

Before the joyful return of slick nonsense TV (that's CSI:NY, now having fully abandoned its muted pallette of old, plus wonderful L&O:CI with Private Pyle), we caught most of the final episode of The Romantics. Constant interjections of dog-chewing-wasp-faced Peter Ackroyd aside - has he got one of those deals like Alan Yentob that demand he has to be gratuitously in almost every shot? - it was worth watching, albeit very flawed in its telling of the Romantic period.

It was watchable despite the absence of David Tennant (obviously just the one day off from Doctor Who then), not least because Cloud and I came to the same conclusion about one of the performers: namely, Blake Ritson.

Ritson played PB Shelley (scroll cast list). Watching him, I felt this strange sensation that his features were rather graphic: that is, rather like looking at a graphic novel piece of art work. I was thinking this idea through, when Cloud interrupted:

"You know, if ever they were looking for someone to play The Sandman, he'd be right for it"

My God! He was right. And though it is hard to put my finger on exactly which of the many illustrated incarnations of Gaiman's character Ritson most resembles - this, from the most recent collection, although beyond the canonical 10 volumes, catches something of Ritson's inhabiting of the character - there is definitely something there. Maybe it's the hair, perhaps the straightness of his nose, the angularity of his features as they were photographed for The Romantics: but there is something in his look that reminds me of Dream.

Somebody cast him...

Searches are disturbing

On my Sitemeter I spotted a visitor from Poland. How did they get to me? Searched for cute+man on google. That brings me up as the fourth site on the results list (27,800,00 results!) with this. Fine, but given the top result one kind of imagines that finding my reference was not quite what they wanted...

Communication and knowledge are amazing things

Can I ask you Jane, did your head hurt after having this conversation? Did you also find a head-shaped dent in the nearest wall?

Beatles albums

As a long-term Beatles fan, I could hardly keep my mits off this from HolyHosesRob and picked up by others including the lovely Anna (who is just keeping on the right side of insanity-inducing rage about the position of Artic Monkeys in the NME best albums of all time poll).

Anyway, from me, an ordering of Beatles albums, which was tougher than I thought it would be:

1. help! - weird choice for many but it was probably one of the first I bought after they screened the film on the day that Lennon died (or it was at least screened that weekend). Great pop tunes, with lennon at his faux-Dylanesque best. "You're Gonna Lose That Girl" is just harmonies in heaven! "I've just seen a face" is so fast-paced its breathlessness is intoxicating. And "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" (I loved that track!) still knocks me out.

2. beatles for sale - gems a plenty (I practically wore out "Words of Love" even)

3. rubber soul - as an album it just hung together so beautifully in my mind "In My Life"? "Norwegian Wood?" "Girl"? great stuff. Also the first album of theirs I could truly strum along to... get those chord changes in...

4. white album - for years I thought there was a great single album fighting to get out of the double-horror show of this collection. I've warmed more to the diversity of its clattering tastes and directions. "I will" to "Julia", "while my guitar..." to "Happiness is warm gun" "sexy sadie to helter skelter": every track takes you in a weird direction either in style or tone. Duff tracks too, but the sound quality is fab

5. Beatles at the Beeb - some gems here and much better recordings than the Decca auditions and the messy flawed chaos of the Hamburg tapes (both released by so many distributors in such variable quality releases I can't bring myself to list them here). But the Beeb tapes are delightful: and for the husky harmonies on "to know here is to love her"... just to die for.

6. ...at the hollywood bowl - the noise and recording are, well, chaotic, but it is perhaps the best record of them live in their heyday we could hope for.

7. revolver - some grotty fillers ("Dr Robert"!?) and finally I can admit that "Tomorrow Never Knows" may be advancing the technological experimentation of music but its not very interesting or pleasant! But quality shows and for overall feel I do love it, especially given that the same period also gave us the double-sided "Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane".

8. a hard day's night - it sounds... tinny? sorry... some great pop tracks here and the twelve-string really works well: "If I Fell" and "You Can't Do That" still shiver me though. the film is still a joy

9. let it be - now the film and the album together (both versions), THAT shows what a difference production makes. I love Spector but the warbling on "Long and Winding Road" was unforgivable. As was the change of guitar solo on Let it Be...

10. abbey road - a mess, but redeemed by the noise that I loved from "I want you" and the overall soundscape effect

11. sgt pepper - "she's leaving home" and "day in a life" retrieve it from even lower down

12. please please me - rough, some would say not rough enough by comparison to the energy of the beatles live in the cavern, or hamburg (but not captured by the hampburg tapes either, done as they were at the dog-end days of their hamburg trips). but it has "I Saw her Standing There" and the sublime "Twist and Shout"

13. with the beatles - some really scrappy songs and recordings on this, though I was quite fond of lennon's croaky on "you really got a hold on me"

14. magical mystery tour - a mess, mess, mess

15. yellow submarine - scarcely a Beatles album, and even lesser than the last one

Excuse lack of caps, mistyping and all manner of poor phrasing. Really though, this was way harder than I would have liked.

I should know better than to even think about reading NME lists

Found this on "She had a Thirst for Knowledge" - newly added blog to the sidebar. The NME has done one of its usual lists of the 100 best albums (scroll to 2006 list) and it inspires more confusion than anything else: I mean, I know the majesterial "The Queen is Dead" is in at 2, but "Strangways Here We Come" at 19? Huh?! Oasis STILL making the list? "Never Mind the Bollocks" at 4? More like "never mind this bollocks"...

I just about forgive them for at least having Pulp in at 7...

Clare in the Community: February 1st 2006

Check out the Clare cartoon for today February 1st (this link may change over time: hence the reference to the date ).

Cloud feels this is most appropriate for me!