I’m done! My shopping is now complete. Let’s all sing the ‘how-much-does-Andrew-rule’ song.

Oooooh how much does Andrew rule
So much more than the pope
When we think of him we drool
In fact go get me some soap

Louder, please.

I have an annoying recurring habit of hero worship. I don’t know why. I’ll get it into my head that someone I admire is perfect in every way, and will defend them to extremes for no good reason. I do this with all sorts of people I don’t know that much about. I’m then disappointed if something happens to tarnish my opinion, and feel cheated. It’s awfully strange. I’m conscious that I’m affected by public perception, too. If director x is widely regarded as being good - and it only takes a well written phrase on a random website to convince me of this - then I’ll decide that he/she is in fact very good and I should evangelise about his/her films. It’s bizarre, and I’m trying to stop myself doing it.

Charlie Kaufman is an excellent example of this. He’s a screenwriter and apparently is very highly regarded in the industry. I picked up on this at some point and even before seeing any of his films thought of him as ‘very good’. I then saw Being John Malkovich and didn’t like it all that much. Still, my opinion didn’t change. Am I weird or what. A year or so ago I watched his next film, Adaptation, which I thought was excellent. Thing is, was I influenced by my prior opinions of the writer, however unjustified they may have been? I don’t know. I still think Adaptation was great, but I don’t know how to separate the two things in my head.

Just to confuse the issue, I saw Confessions of a Dangerous Mind - written by Mr Kaufman - and thought that was great too. Then I found out that Mr Kaufman wasn’t at all happy with the changes that had been made to his script, and didn’t like the way the film turned out. So then I wondered whether my opinion of the film would change based on this new information, and if it did, am I completely and totally nuts? I sometimes get so wrapped up in nonsensical thoughts!

Last night, however, I saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which was absoloutely wonderful. It was everything I like about movies. I’m sure that, although my brain defaults to ‘I like Charlie Kaufman’, I would have loved the film anyway. It was delightful from the first frame and I adored it. I watched it again this evening with Mum and Dad, and it seemed much shorter. I can only think of two other films that seemed to go faster after the first screening: Gladiator and Donnie Darko, which are two of my favourite all-time films. So that’s probably an indication of what I really think. Maybe. Anyway.

So I still like Charlie Kaufman. I know nothing about him other than that he writes films, some of which I really enjoy. He’s cool, though. Argh.

What is TB weekend? The suspense is over…

TwinkleBulbs!!!! I love TwinkleBulbs. It’s great! Happy festive cheer for the computer! Every computer in our office is now festooned. That word rocks so very much. Festoonage! Festoonification! Festoonaboggan! Festoonanana! Festoonoramadingdongmerrilyonhighajoopjooptassleflipper!

Features of TwinkleBulbs:

• Bulbs on the desktop / always on top / in their own little taskbar! Many (over 200) different bulb sets! Sure, some are boring flags, but most are much more jolly. They can go all around the screen, too. A timer will change them every x minutes if you like, too. They flash! In many different colours!
• Happy Christmassy screensaver! It snows onto a snowman and a christmas tree while Santa flies overhead and the aforemention bulbs twinkle merrily.
• Jolly festive music! Many carol midis cycle as you work.
• Wallpapers!
• An advent calendar!
• Build your own bulbs!
• Guaranteed to cheer you up on cold winter mornings!
• Does the ironing!

and much much more. So go get it. Now now now. I know that Ben particularly is addicted to TwinkleBulbs. In fact it was he who insisted I write a full review and spread the word. I don’t apologise at all for spreading the Goodness that is TwinkleBulbs. If you’d like an apology, may I direct you here.

Star Wars: Attack of the Clones had a teaser trailer which came out a full 12 months before the film. Did that annoy you? If so, you may not want to read my next article. I bet when you first saw this (I know it’s a date imprinted onto your collective memories) you never suspected it’d be a full year before the tension was released! I’m such a wag.

Something weird happened today. For no good reason I completely blew up at my sister, and we ended up having a blazing row like we haven’t since we were kids. We both said some horrible things and although we made up I still feel awful about it. I just don’t know what the hell got into me. I could count the times I’ve been angry in the last five years on the fingers of one hand - I don’t do angry, I get upset instead. I’m a little concerned about money atm, and am very nervous about Kate coming back, so maybe I’m just on edge generally - I dunno. Anyway, sorry, Jane.

I sat down with the intention of writing a short story, and instead I ended up with this:

With meadows of light and dead stars in her eyes
She clawed at the night and fell into the sky
Too young to be wise and with decades unspent
In the streets of the city her cry of repent
The fallen are many when god charms the young
A weaving of wonder, and sanity spurned
Too steady the nerve of those worst placed to lead
A faith-scythe drops blood into furrows of seed
Send forth your young into clouds of crossed-poison
Their crossroads a dirt track, their avenue chosen
Perfection fights nature with Man incidental
Brings shame at a failure with hope detrimental
She’d sink to the ground when cowed by His gaze
But don’t expect help from mysterious ways
Seabound she tumbled, then a speck in the swell
Her last breath a tonic to send her to hell
Controllers would preach of the state of humanity
But in souls of pure passion a spark of depravity
Fight a river of sin! the holy words teach
But by a hand of a carer the embankment is breached
For bridges have watchers and all-seeing lenses
Created by science, they man the defenses
The waves part through physics and fighting the current
Man lunges and snatches the lost from the torrent
A whisper of logic, the scent of the sure
Can bring down the towers and flush out the sewer
What faith-based morality sent into despair
Rose from the deep with the truth in her stare

Unfortunately I was otherwise engaged for the second half of Strictly Come Dancing last night, but I just caught it on the TiVo. I completely cut off all communication with the outside world from 9 onwards last night, so if you were stuck down a pit and calling for help - I’ll be leaving shortly.

Jill won! Wooooooo! Deservedly so, too. She’s completely forgiven for being the Most Annoying Coronation Street Character Ever a few years back On the 22nd December there’s a special with the top three from both series* going head to head. Should be great - will be all Christmassy Natasha versus Jill should be wonderful to watch, although Natasha never got 40/40. I still can’t believe that. UPDATE: According to this neither Julian Clary for Christopher Parker will be in the Christmas special. An excellent idea imho, although I don’t know where that information’s from…

I want to dance! In the new year I’m going to find a class and join. Yep yep yep. I probably have less rhythm than a geriatric penguin, but I don’t care! UPDATE: Hmmmm - don’t think it’s for complete beginners, though.

*apostrophe after the s? ’series’ is a plural, isn’t it?

40 out of 40! Jill rules. I have voted. So should you.

By my reckoning Jill would have to come in last place in the viewer vote to lose, now. Any other position and she’s won. Apparently over Christmas there’s a special episode with Natasha Kaplinsky against the winner of this series; it’d be pretty silly if she were against Julian! Go Jill.

Strictly Come Dancing is great. I like it a lot. I like the costumes, the drama, the skill and the format. It’s just fun to watch. The only quibble I have is with the slightly odd scoring system, which works like this:

On the night, each performer is given a score out of 10 by four separate judges. For example Jill (my personal favourite) may get scores of 8,9,9,9 - because she’s great. These scores are then added up and points awarded based on position. So:

Now, the exact same thing happens with the public vote. Whoever gets the most votes is allocated the maximum number of points, and so on; the lowest receiving 1. The points are then added, and the performer with the lowest is kicked out of the competition. In the result of a tie, the public vote has preference. So:

The part of the show where the losers are announced goes as follows: All performers stand in a row. Then, in no particular order, the names of performers who are safe are read out. Finally only two remain. We are told that these are the performers with the lowest score.

But, here’s the thing.

Last week Aled Jones was knocked out. A bit unfair given that he was much better than Julian, who remained. That’s not the issue, though. It’s just a bit weird. The judges scores on the night were as follows:

They each did two dances, btw. I was out on the night this happened so didn’t see it actually happen, but last night I saw a clip in which Denise and Aled were the two performers facing the axe. This implies that they got the lowest score. The thing is, I can only find one way in which that could happen but Aled be the one to go. I’m making two assumptions, which certainly used to be true:

1. The public vote takes preference
2. The final two performers received the lowest overall scores

The number of possibilities for the viewer vote is 4! = 24, so I wrote them all out. Here’s a summary:

PP = Public Preference. The other 18 possibilities don’t apply, as Denise would always get more than Julian.

So the viewer ranking must have been: Julian, Jill, Aled, Denise. You’re telling me that the public voted Julian better than Jill? And Denise last? Really? I’m not suggesting that it’s fixed or anything. You have to ask yourself which would be the more extraordinary: the BBC fixing a vote, or the public going more by who makes them laugh than by who’s best at dancing, on a show about dancing. By this criterion, the latter is certainly the more likely.

It’s just…disappointing. This evening it’s Jill, Julian and Denise in the final. Last series only two performers were in the final, which was silly as the scoring system means that the public vote decided it - the judges may as well not have been there. By past performances Jill should win by a mile, but you never know what’ll happen. Still, it’d be a shame if Julian won purely through being funny, as that’s not the point. I shall be voting, anyway

Final round of Weakest Link:

What phrase means both ‘a verbal blunder’ and ‘to let fall a stuffed woollen mouse’?

They got it, too Click below for the answer.

According to Terry Wogan, this week on “Beg, Borrow or Steal” - a gameshow in which you can ‘buy’ answers from other players if you don’t know yourself - the question was something like ‘Which animal no longer can be found in Ireland?’. Nobody knew the answer except one player who sold her answer to all the other players. She told them: ’snakes’. When she gave her answer, she said ‘rats’. This is perfectly legitimate - you can lie to the other players if you want. However when asked as to her reasoning she said that she ‘knew it was rats because she remembered about the man who played his pipe and led them all out of the town’. The correct answer was…snakes.
Continue reading ‘In Front of Millions…’

It’s so good. So very very good. It rocks. It smells, too.

It’s so good.

Not much to say today. Here’s a poem:

If space were made of jelly
and time rang like a bell
the earth would be much rounder
but squishy like a parrot

What, poetry has to rhyme now? What kind of uncultured lot are you?

What? How could…? What?

I spoke too soon last night. I didn’t feel sick any more but I hardly slept for the rest of the night. I had some funny idea in my head about a certain process that would fix things, and it just kept repeating and repeating. I don’t really remember the details, but it was most odd and I was tossing and turning all night. This morning I’m half-dead through lack of sleep, my head hurts, I’m very woozy and can’t think properly and my stomach is, I think, trying to digest itself. So that’s good. I have a cunning plan for today that involves comics, dvds, a duvet and the lounge sofa. I’ve taken various tablets which help a fair bit - hopefully it’ll pass over soon. Don’t know whether it’s a bug or just something I’ve eaten.

I bet you’re all really glad you came now, aren’t you.

Really it is. I’d been feeling bloody awful for hours. Went to bed at 11 and after an hour’s fitful self-pitying why-do-I-not-relish-every-moment-I-don’t-feel-like-this half-sleep there was an incident that could be described as spectacular, technicolour and not a little messy. Not the most pleasant of experiences, but at least I made it to the bathroom.

Goddamn do I feel good now though! I am cleansed of evil nausea-inducing bacteria! I feel great!

I should do this more often.

Incidentally this was posted from my phone. I didn’t go downstairs and turn on the computer. That would be weird.