The Sketch Show is Dead (Meet it's Killer)

I've just watched what may be the single worst programme of the year. Indeed, it's a hot contender for the worst programme I've ever seen.

C4's Blunder (10.00pm Thursday on E4, 10.35pm Friday on Channel 4) could not be more aptly named. Coming on the back of a small torrent of pre-publicity (well, it certainly got more than Dean Learner, whose final episode on Friday has been rather ungraciously shoved back an hour to 11.55pm, to make way for not only the Friday showing of this programme, but also for one of the new vehicles for the inexplicably popular Russell Brand), Blunder comes across like under-rehearsed collection of all the sketches and characters that were considered too shit to include in other shows.

The hit rate for jokes was about as close to zero as you could get without watching a blank screen. Honestly, I've seen episodes of Comedy Lab that were better than this.

One particular disappointment was the involvement of David Mitchell, but it could be argued that given his slight over-exposure recently, it was only a matter of time before he chose a genuine stinker.

Between the fart gags and jokes about gays, you've got to wonder how something like this slips through quality control. After all, it's not as if it features any major stars that might be holding a gun to Channel 4's head in order to get them to screen it, nor could cost of production be much of a factor, given that it looks like it cost about 8p to make the episode I watched.

I don't think there's ever been a sketch show that could be considered consistently funny from start to finish, but it takes a special kind of effort to turn out a show where nothing works.

In a rather unprecedented move, instead of screening it in some graveyard slot over Christmas like you'd imagine they would, Channel 4 have actually decided to 'preview' every episode on E4 the night before showing it on terrestrial telly.

Presumably the reason behind this is to give viewers a head start in wiping it from their memories.

Fun with Scamsters

With reference to an earlier post of mine, I just found this.

I only wish I could suppress my overwhelming annoyance enough to actually do something like this when one of these people call.

People are Reading This?

A quick special no-thanks to Blogger.com, as I've just realised that there were comments waiting to be moderated from up to three months ago.

I rather stupidly thought that there might be some sort of indication when someone left a comment, like a small icon, or even just a short message on the Blogger Dashboard, but I suppose that would be asking too much.

Still, for the (two) people who left them, your words have now been put in their rightful place as you can see, unless you've decided never to look at this blog again because you became disillusioned with my overly high standards towards user comments or something.

The only reason I decided to have moderated comments in the first place was because I didn't want to get flooded with offers for knob cream and vole insurance (ironically I need both now).

Mainly though, it was to protect my fragile ego. Some kid referred to me as 'that man' the other day, and I briefly considered taking my own life.

Liar Seeks Heir

Famous fork-warper Uri Geller is looking for contestants to take part in a reality TV show to find an 'heir' to his legacy.

So, calling all magicians who haven't updated their act since the '70s.

Geller is a strange character, a man who has seemingly made a living playing on the benefit of the doubt that some people seem to give him that he really has mystical powers.

Nobody goes and sees David Copperfield and thinks, "Holy shit! That guy can really fly!", because he doesn't claim to be anything other than an illusionist (and even if he did, the high tensile wire riding up his arse might be a bit of a clue).

The fact that Geller claims to have supernatural powers and never, ever backs down appears to be enough evidence for some people to believe whatever he says.

In a sense I don't really blame him - he's just exploiting the woolly thinking and ludicrous belief systems people find themselves adopting. In a world where you won't find a single newspaper that doesn't feature horoscopes, entire channels devoted to 'contacting the dead', or, most alarming of all, the increasingly scary rise of religion on different sides of the planet, the only surprise is that more people don't chance their arm with claims of mysticism. The odds seem fairly good that you'd have at least a degree of success.

The thing is, performers like Derren Brown have proved you don't even need to pretend to be something you aren't in order to turn out impressive performances. Brown has never claimed to be anything other than a magician/hypnotist, and yet has fashioned an air of freakiness around him that Geller couldn't hope to emulate, no matter how much cutlery he vandalises.

It's unclear why Geller and his 'gifts' have endured for so long - what kind of 'special power' is the ability to (eventually) snap teaspoons after fannying around for quarter of an hour?

If you look around though, Geller's the least of it. With 'evolution' virtually a swear word in parts of America and sales of dreamcatchers on the increase (probably), we may be soon pining for the days when some nutty Israeli used his impressive psychic powers to guess that David Frost had drawn a picture of a cat.

And the Loser is... Gaming

If there are any regular readers of this blog (and I'm confident there aren't), you may recall my first proper post which included a short list of reasons why any new games-related TV programme is virtually guaranteed to be shit.

That post, and also this slightly more recent one bring us bang up to date with The British Academy Video Games Awards 2006, or the Bafta Video Game Awards, as they were slightly less elegantly called in my listings magazine.

Despite the fact that my previously documented misgivings were actually directed more towards a weekly magazine-type show revolving around games and not a one-off awards ceremony, it nevertheless managed to tick most of the boxes anyway (it even managed to include a short feature on pro-gamers, Jesus God).

It smacked of a programme made and presented by people who clearly have no love for games (and who made no secret of it) - why did someone think it would be a good idea to have Dave Berry make 'hilarious' comments when showing clips of each of the nominated games for example? In fact that rather summed up the attitude of the programme-makers, and given that it was hidden away on E4 at 11.00pm, it was fairly clear that they seemed almost embarrassed to have to televise an awards ceremony for videogames.

Which, actually, is fair enough. But if you're going to do it, do it properly or just don't bother.

Apologists would say that the videogame industry is still in its relative infancy, and therefore any exposure in the mainstream is a good thing, but I would say a bad show is a bad show, and if they think this effort did anything to help the general perception of games and gamers I would suggest they are sorely mistaken.

Let's be honest - all awards shows are embarrassing and shit, so the chances of a ceremony celebrating games bucking the trend was unlikely, but it could have easily been made 1,000 times better by just playing it straight(er).

Some particular lowlights include:

1. An audience full of PR nobodies (Miyamoto will never been seen near an event like this) picking up awards for all their sterling work (threatening games mag editors with pulling their exclusivity deal if they don't praise their game to the hilt).
2. A potted history of videogames interspersed between awards which was so cursory, it seemed like they'd gotten a runner to spend a hour on Wikipedia researching it.
3. The fact that, without exception, every 'celeb' dragged on to present an award had absolutely no affinity with videogames whatsoever. They couldn't even really bring themselves to lie about it either.
4. Vernon Kay.

You may notice I've made no comment about the actual winners here, and that's because most of them didn't even register with me. The truth is they're really only of any interest to the people nominated anyway - I'm certainly no more likely to play Ghost Recon because of its win, nor am I about to cast New Super Mario Bros. into the fires of Hades because it lost in its category ('Best Children's Game' of all things - that's really going to help Nintendo with that kiddie image thing).

If anything proves what an immense waste of time the whole affair was, one of the categories called 'The Gamers' Award' (actually best mobile phone game) was voted for by readers of the Sun's 'Something for the Weekend' (whatever that is), and given that mobile phone games are at best regarded as an insult to proper gaming, you could regard your chance to influence the outcome of that category as an insult to yourself. I don't believe any of BAFTA's other glittering ceremonies include a text vote anyway.

Still, some woman who used to be in some pop band got to perform her new single at the end so it wasn't a complete write-off.

Just Play Some Records, You Twats

According to 'a man on the radio' (Nick Gillett from the Guardian), the upcoming Nintendo Wii is for a completely different audience to the X-Box 360, because, 'Microsoft is for gamers'.

Thanks for clearing that up.

It's bad enough when you get this kind of guff in some fanboy forum or the letters page of some tatty partisan games mag, but it's another thing when it's in the mainstream media (alright, 6 Music).

Whatever you think of Nintendo, it would be difficult to make an argument that they didn't have the enjoyment of gamers in mind when they create new products. Almost every genuine innovation in gaming can be traced back to a piece of software or hardware that emerged from their Kyoto HQ; the original NES controller which set the standard for joypads to this day, analogue thumbsticks, wireless controllers, rumble paks, battery back-up, and now the Wii remote.

For the first time in ages I find myself genuinely excited about a new console.

The slightly dispiriting prospect of having to upgrade your machine just to play the same games, but with slightly more realistic eyebrows on characters has been pushed aside by the mouthwatering prospect of a whole new way of playing games.

Given the seemingly endless possibilities this presents, to dismiss Nintendo's new console out of hand like that would appear to be the attitude of someone who either a) is an astounding graphics tart or b) has a grudge against Nintendo, possibly because he once got touched up in a lift by Hiroshi Yamauchi.

I shouldn't get so annoyed though - to date, the mainstream coverage of videogames has mostly consisted of screaming headlines about how Sonic the Hedgehog bummed a child through the TV screen, or how Grand Theft Auto made a kid go and shoot someone's head off because he would never have realised what all those guns that were lying around his house were for otherwise.

Some papers that don't decry games as the handiwork of the Devil (and hilariously some that do) sometimes try cozy up to them, occasionally dedicating half a page of ill-informed, out-of-date copy to them every now and again - my local rag once gave Driv3r 10/10. I wish I'd kept that.

American 'English'

Have a glance at this and tell me if you notice anything.

No, not the effortlessly tedious Blair/Brown no-love affair - I'd sooner attempt hack my head off with another man's penis than write about politics. No, I was referring to the rather curious spelling of 'Labour' throughout the article.

Given that the term 'Labour Party' is a proper noun, it shouldn't be subject to being 'Americanized', should it? You'd think someone writing for the New York Times would know that, even if it is just the online edition.

Ordinarily, I could care less, however this is the week that the film World Trade Center (yes, spelt like that) opens in the UK, which rather smacks of having your cake and eating it.

That special relationship, eh? If it's all about give and take, it's fairly clear who's taking it.

Driving in the Slow Lane

Here's a bit of rubbish journalism for you.

In a piece about Richard Hammond's crash for The Independent's online edition, David Randall wrote:

"...the made-for-TV stunt, reminiscent of the risks the late Australian wildlife daredevil Steve Irwin used to take..."

Really? I don't ever recall Steve Irwin strapping himself into a car fitted with a rocket engine and trying to break the land speed record.

It's a slightly desperate attempt to link two completely unconnected news stories, a bit like the girl on Question Time the other day who asked if, given the tragic death of Steve Irwin and the injuries sustained by Richard Hammond, reality TV should not be more closely regulated.

A few points:

1. Steve Irwin and Richard Hammond didn't make reality TV programmes; 'reality TV' is when you trap a hideous bunch of people in a particular situation and try to get them to shag/kill each other.
2. Steve Irwin was killed in an extremely freak accident - only 17 deaths have been recorded by stingrays in Australia since 1969.
3. There have always been daredevils and people willing to put themselves in harm's way in order to break records or entertain the public - nobody made them do it.

The rather hysterical, and slightly pious, dissembling of the whole 'irresponsible' Top Gear affair has rather annoyed me - and I don't even like cars. An element of risk is what a lot of programmes are based on - the only good thing about ensuring all shows are Health & Safety-ed to within an inch of their lives is that it would mean an end to Last of the Summer Wine - after all, you wouldn't be able to send a load of old men down the side of a hill in a bath any more.

Gaming-Based Lament #462

This post was inspired partly by this entry on The RAM Raider's blog.

I can't remember the last time I read a games magazine. Not properly, anyway.

Aside from skimming through one to take the salient points (overall scores) from the couple of reviews I might be interested in that month, and a quick glance at upcoming releases, I'll rarely be found reading one.

This is what I've always done though, with the exception that, in the past, at some point I would return and read the thing properly.

But not now.

It could be that demands on my time are to blame. Or the fact that the internet has brought an immediacy that mags couldn't hope to match. But I believe the truth is that I just don't enjoy reading them like I used to.

Unlike a lot of people, I do like Edge. I trust their opinions, and their depth of knowledge about the world of games and its history is almost scary, but I don't really want to read a sixteen page article about whether games are art or not.

Some people obviously do, and that's fine, but what are the alternatives? Some shitty 'official' rag, that has its reviews faxed to them by a PR person from the games company? Or perhaps arguably the lowest form of games publishing - the 'lifestyle games mag'.

The very notion of such a thing already has the vomit leaving my stomach looking for an exit, but somehow these publications still exist. There is nothing more painful than opening a magazine and seeing an article, ostensibly about 'social gaming', but which features a double-page picture of a bunch of blokes on a sofa with joypads in hand and bottles of beer dotted about the room.

Because check the fuck out of us, we play games AND drink alcohol.

For me, reading mags was at least 50% of what I enjoyed about games. The truth is, there was nothing wrong with magazines that had a more surreal or humourous take on the world of games. Very often, it was the stuff in the mags that had nothing whatsoever to do with games that I enjoyed the most - the fact that the people writing it also liked games too was more of a bonus.

The days of the Your Sinclair staff pretending the magazine was put together in a garden shed are long gone, and the death throes of that particular kind of witty, knowing games writing could not have been demonstrated more clearly by the short life and undignified death of the last attempt of its kind, Arcade magazine.

Those kind of mags didn't die because they were shit, they were forced out of existence by publishers more keen to appeal to people with writing on their t-shirts, seemingly declaring that the days of gaming as a marginalised, clique-y hobby were gone forever.

But what that really means is that most of the people who used to buy games mags probably don't bother any more, which is certainly true for me, and since Digitiser metamorphosed into a humourless hardcore heaven, it's left a gaping hole in my gaming life, one which could be filled easily by producing just one quality games publication that didn't feature interviews with club DJs.

The Tit Awards

Here's something I've just noticed:

"Justin Lee Collins to present the Golden Joystick Awards 2006."

If you needed another reason to not pay any attention whatsoever to this ceremony, then they have provided it and then some.

Given that it usually warrants about half a column in most game mags, I don't know anyone who really cares about these awards, aside perhaps from the grey PR execs who populate the audience, whom you would only recognise if you happened to catch that episode of Click Online they appeared on making ludicrous claims about their company's new console or something.

Or the ex-Big Brother contestants and tabloid scandal-causers who get another 3 valuable seconds of airtime while presenting a award.

If awards ceremonies per se are largely unbearable viewing, then sitting through a show fêting computer and video games is probably something akin to being strapped to a chair while someone inserts a red hot needle into your bollocks at regular intervals.

I don't know if Mr. Lee Collins knows anything about gaming, but I suspect that's a moot point anyway - his job is probably just to read an autocue in the unbelievably loud and exaggerated way that's made him a star.

Fishy Fuckwits

What's the definition of an idiot? You'd be hard pushed to better this.

It seems people having been killing stingrays in Australia, apparently as some kind of revenge attack for the death of Steve Irwin. Yeah, that'll teach 'em - those shovel-shaped bastards have been getting away with it for too long.

Honestly, you've got to wonder sometimes how the human race ever managed to drag itself out of the caves to begin with, never mind build some kind of 'civilisation'.

If it isn't waging war on fish, they're falling over themselves to put the boot in to a man before his corpse is even cold (just check out the Wikipedia history page for the article about stingrays - they couldn't crowbar poorly spelled 'jokes' into the article quick enough).

Still, you don't know the full story - perhaps those stingrays were hanging around a Tube station looking a bit shifty, and you never know what they could be hiding under their gills...

How to Kick a Man When He's Dead

There used to be an unwritten equation when attempting to make light of a shocking or upsetting event. It went something like this:

Tragedy + Time = Comedy

That middle part was generally key - try and jump in with a light-hearted take on the situation too soon and you could risk looking like an insensitive prick.

Over the years, the gap between something tragic happening and the first wave of jokes about it has become shorter and shorter, to the point where it's entirely feasible that someone could've easily written a terrorist-based sitcom between the first and second planes hitting the World Trade Center.

If you throw the Internet into the mix, the equation would now look more like this:

Tragedy = How Fast You Can Post to B3ta

I haven't bothered trying to search out all the examples of "humour" extracted from the sad death of Steve Irwin, but I know they're out there already - it's as certain as Vernon Kay is a twat.

I don't know why people feel the need to try and outdo each other in their crassitude. Are all these weak puns and hastily knocked together Photoshop gags just individuals trying to show a bit of edge by being first to the punch? Or are people actually showing their true natures?

If it's the former, then hiding behind the anonymity of a stupid made-up name and an untraceable e-mail account is hardly anything to boast about.

But if it's the latter, that's far more unsettling. There's a seamy side to the Internet, and I'm not just talking about the various hate groups or the more sordid end of the self-love market. With the unprecedented freedom the Web has brought us, there's apparently less reason than ever for some people to employ a bit of sensitivity, and I fear that for some, the marks they leave online are probably closest to their true feelings.

Arch Twat

I see Jeffrey Archer's on the telly flogging women's magazines.

Seriously, how big a cunt do you have to be before people refuse to touch you with a shitty bargepole?

Perhaps given the cadre of cocksuckers who currently run the world, the question is moot.

But Archer is interesting - here's a man who seemingly hasn't done an honourable thing in his entire life. Indeed, it would appear that the man has been lying and cheating his way through life from his moment of birth.

I could easily believe that his first words were, "See this 'Spot the Dog' book? I wrote that."

Even a spell in prison wasn't enough to burst his smug bubble. Whereas Jonathan Aitken, who was sentenced for similar offences, seemed to be humbled by his time inside, Archer came out apparently as defiant as ever, not even seeming to accept that he'd actually done anything wrong.

Why is it exactly, that certain people who repeatedly prove themselves unworthy of a job of any kind always seem to land on their feet?

I'm thinking of starting an experiment: I'm going to go around acting like the biggest bastard the world has ever seen, and see if I can become Emperor of Earth before the end of the year.

Fraud Squad

Someone's just tried to scam me up.

The phone rang and, because I'm hugely paranoid (I'm always checking in cupboards for Communists), I made sure to look at the display to see the phone number of the caller.

Funny thing though - there was no number to display. Feeling adventurous, I answered anyway, to be greeted by some woman saying something like, "Stand by for a call from... someone." I couldn't really make it out, but it did make it seem rather grand - it'd almost be like receiving a call from the President of the USA - you know, if the President of the USA wasn't a evil cock.

Anyway, a few seconds later, some guy came on the line, said something inaudible, then asked me how I was. "Alright," I said (although to be honest I had just killed a man - I was slightly on edge if anything). He asked me if I used a mobile phone (I don't actually - why give "The Man" the opportunity to track you down and bum you into submission?). Nevertheless he wasted no time in telling me that my number had been selected to receive a free mobile, and made it clear that it would not cost me a thing.

Now here's the thing - I'd have to be Kevin McStupid from Stupidtown, Hants in order to not immediately spot that this guy was on the swindle, and indeed at the first opportunity (after he stopped repeatedly telling me that it would cost me nothing) I told him I wasn't interested.

"Why don't you want a free mobile phone?" he said.

"Because this is a scam," says I.

"But... it's free," he replied.

This sort of went on for a bit, until he asked me one last time why I wasn't interested and I said, "Because this is a scam and you know it is." At which point he bid me good day, cutting his losses and moving down to the next hopefully more vulnerable householder on his list.

I only wish I'd wasted more of his time now. I'll be prepared for next time though - I've got a whole routine worked out whereby I let him believe I'm interested and keep him on the line for as long as possible, before playing in some sound effects in the background of gunfire, before hanging up.

I can't wait.

Sh-ITV

The outgoing chief executive of ITV has been having a pop at Channel 4.

In a speech at the Edinburgh TV festival, Charles Allen said that Channel 4 should "grow up" and "face greater scrutiny of its programmes".

Anyone who's watched ITV recently (or in the last 10 years) would immediately recognise that this attack was broadly equivalent to a man dying of self-inflicted gunshot wounds taking the piss out of someone for stubbing their toe.

It's worth emphasising that word in the first sentence up there. He is the outgoing chief executive, and with good reason - his channel is a national disgrace.

Channel 4 isn't perfect, and I'm certainly not about to hold Big Brother up as an example of quality broadcasting. Indeed, such is my hatred for said 'programme', should I meet anyone involved with its production, I may find myself involuntarily injuring them with whatever was nearest to hand.

But when your entire schedule is filled with the kind of tat that even Endemol wouldn't consider making, you really have no position of authority.

When ITV started going down the tubes, I was actually quite dismayed - a channel that's been around for 50 years, the second oldest in Britain, with some great memories of shows from years gone by. But when I thought about it, it occurred to me that should it be put out of its misery now, I really couldn't care less.

There is literally not one programme on ITV1 that I watch, and if the worst that can happen is that the TV skips straight from BBC2 to Channel 4, that's surely a welcome price to pay so that we no longer have to pretend to foreign visitors that the third channel is actually a 24-hour rolling spoof station.

No Sacred Cows, But Could You Not Mention...

The BBC have been getting their metaphorical scissors out a bit recently.

Apart from removing some stuff about the Prime Minister from Time Trumpet with Armando Iannucci (10.00pm Thursdays, BBC2), the latest casualty would seem to be the new series of a radio comedy called The Franz Kafka Big Band, which has been removed from the schedules after editors (whoever they may be) thought a number of sketches were 'inappropriate'.

You can read the full story here.

The BBC described the show's subject matter as 'bold', but seemingly failed to match them for courage by bottling it at the last minute and pulling the programme.

The problem they seem to have with it is that a number of sketches play on recent world events, religious beliefs, and others apparently poke fun at groups like the Taliban.

But what I would say is this: if you can't poke fun at terrorists and religious fanatics, who can you ridicule?

As usual in circumstances like this, they've played it completely wrong. By pulling the show like they have, they've drawn more attention to it than it probably ever would have gotten just by broadcasting it, and now it looks like if it ever appears on the schedule, it'll be in a rather limp, watered-down form.

This is a huge shame, because from what I've read about it, it sounds fairly hilarious, which would be something of a novelty, as the BBC's usual radio comedy output is about as funny as a weekend in intensive care.

Cruising for a Losing

Tom Cruise has been dropped by Paramount Pictures due to his 'unacceptable recent conduct'.

Which is a polite way of saying, "Tom Cruise is too mental now for even shameless money-grubbing Hollywood executives to put up with."

Which, considering that those same bigwigs would probably cut a 3 picture deal with Osama Bin Laden if they thought he could pull in the key 16-35 demographic, is certainly saying something.

The weird thing is, up until relatively recently, Cruise might have been considered the acceptable face of Scientology. I don't ever remember him talking about it at all actually, and certainly never pegged him for taking up the long overdue campaign against Brooke Shields.

But his behaviour of late his been so odd, I could easily imagine even John Travolta turning all the lights off and hiding in the electricity cupboard whenever he comes round.

Maybe this is just what happens when obscenely wealthy superstars have mid-life crises, and marrying a young actress and impromptu trampolining on chat shows is just their equivalent of buying a Ferrari and getting a spray tan.

Superman Can Bugger Off Again

Finally saw Superman Returns the other day. I'm still not entrirely sure what I think of it, but I'm leaning towards massive disappointment.

Anyway, here are some questions it threw up (note - spoilers within):

1. According to Marlon Brando in that recorded message, it took Superman thousands of years to travel to Earth. So how fast can Superman fly then, if he was expecting to go and find Krypton? Or was he expecting to be out there for aeons?
2. What did he eat, and what did he breathe in space? If they're going by the standard, 'He gets all his energy from the Sun' mythos (which I've never really liked - why does he have a stomach then?), then that explains the food thing, but he has to breathe, doesn't he? Even if he took some oxygen with him, it wouldn't have lasted him five years.
3. Five years alone in space? He'd have gone mental surely?
4. How strong is he then? There have to be some limits on his abilities. And why - if it was such a struggle to stop that plane - is he apparently able to lift an entire island (infused with Kryptonite no less) up into space?
5. Why did they go with the comedy Lex Luthor approach? Kevin Spacey appears to be on a permanent piss-take throughout the film, an attitude he seemingly carried through the publicity tour they did for it. Lex Luthor was always a more interesting character to me than the infallible Superman, and after Michael Rosenbaum's nuanced, more abiguous turn on Smallville, it was a crushing shame to see the character revert to swaggering tosspot.
6. And why give Luthor another ditzy sidekick? There are some throwbacks to the earlier films they needn't have bothered with recalling. Indeed, in many ways it felt like a film from the Eighties, and not really the update I was hoping for.
7. Everyone was thrilled to see Superman again, but no-one seemed to give a stuff that Clark Kent waltzed back into The Daily Planet after five years. And that was one of the main problems with the film for me - not enough Kent. Much the same way I prefer Luthor to Superman, I've always found Superman's alter ego to be the more interesting personality. As Kent, he was probably on screen about 10 minutes altogether, and he almost needn't have been there at all.
8. You can usually judge a film's impact by which scenes and images instantly come to mind when recalling it a few days later. For me, I tend to think of the plane sequence, but beyond that I find it hard to pinpoint any standout moments. And anyone who's seen any of the trailers and publicity clips for the film will have virtually seen the entire plane bit anyway.
9. Does Bryan Singer actually have any pedigree as a director? Apart from the X-Men films, which really do nothing for me, the only other thing of note that he's done seems to be The Usual Suspects, which mainly consists of a load of men talking and trying to make each other laugh.
10. And why do his clothes never burn up on re-entry?

Film Fuck-You-Then

This weekend, Channel 4 encouraged viewers to expand their cinematic knowledge (and by proxy promote the fact that FilmFour is coming to Freeview) by informing us of 50 essential films that everyone should see, or as they put it, 50 Films to See Before You Die.

They attempted to do this via the unusual method of showing all the endings and revealing every twist and surprise in them.

Whose brilliant idea was that then? If I had to guess, I would say it was probably Iain Lee. The lanky alleged comedian and full-time TV talking head has built a career out of ruining the enjoyment of films and TV programmes.

Why bother writing jokes when you can just spoil Fight Club for anyone who hasn't seen it?

In any case the whole exercise was academic as far as I'm concerned, as we won't be able to pick up FilmFour anyway.

It joins a handful of channels that someone has decreed should not be available to the likes of me, or at least only once in a blue moon when the planets are aligned and the wind is blowing in the right direction.

I can't say it's bothered me up until this point - most of the output of the channels that are MIA seems to be wall-to-wall music videos and some camp bloke pretending to talk to ghosts.

I suppose I could just stop being such a cheapskate and buy a satellite dish, but why should I? I like getting stuff for free - and anyway, if they didn't want you to take them, why would they put the Milky Ways in the CCTV blind spot in the newsagent's?

Bring Back Lan Jam

For virtually the entire existence of gaming, people have bemoaned the lack of decent - or any - games-related programming on British telly. Currently, with Cybernet being axed to make way for ITV's chav extortion scheme, the situation is that there is officially no dedicated programme focussed on videogames on terrestrial television.

If any production company has any ideas about making one to fill this gaping void, don't bother - it'll almost certainly be complete rubbish.

Here's why:

1. They'll get some message-T-shirt-wearing idiot to present it who used to do some kids' show, whose sum-total experience of playing games is using the fruit machine while waiting for their next Snakebite.
2. They'll do a feature on 'pro gamers', a topic most ordinary gamers couldn't give a tuppeny-toss about, interviewing a bunch of square-headed American boys called stuff like 'Thrustkill3r', who do nothing but play Quake IV every second of their lives.
3. They'll try and get celebrities to appear on it, but because they have no budget, and because no celebrities actually play any games, they'll get whoever was leftover after QuizMania have had their pick, and whose connection to the world of gaming is that they once saw someone playing Snake on their mobile.
4. They'll cram the show full of CGI sequences from games, because that always looks better than gameplay footage, and the production team probably don't know the difference anyway.
5. On previous form, they'll probably get some kids to do the reviews.

Test This You Mother

Christ McBlimey - how user-unfriendly is this blogging rubbish, eh?

I write this merely to test this stupid thing, because for some reason it won't let me see my 'blog' without any posts.

Still, at least it doesn't always look like it's going to fall apart before your eyes, like MySpace.