Doctor Who is religiously "inappropriate", apparently

We'll have the Doctor back on our screens this Christmas Day, in The Voyage of the Damned, set on the Titanic. However, it's being criticized before it's even aired. Christian groups have, quote from The Times, "expressed concern that the imagery employed was inappropriate for a BBC One Christmas evening show." Apparently at one point, he ascends through the ship's decks, carried by a pair of robotic angels. Russel T. Davies, writer and executive producer said "The series lends itself to religious iconography because the Doctor is a proper saviour", yet Stephen Green of the evangelical group Christian Voice said that "The Doctor would have to do a lot more than the usual prancing around to be a messiah. He has to save people from their sins."

So basically, these people think that a science-fiction TV shows might mislead people on issues concerning the messiah and Christianity... Do they just sit at home thinking up things to complain about? Seriously, don't they have anything better to do? There is no way that Doctor Who could ever possibly mislead kids about religion - they might well get the reference, but it doesn't mean they'll start worshiping the BBC as a religion...

Voyage of the Damned is on BBC One on Christmas Day. If you didn't know already. Which is unlikely.

The Golden Compass

I saw the Golden Compass today, and I'm glad to say I quite enjoyed it. His Dark Materials are one of my favourite series of books, and I read them over and over again - I simply adore them. They're so clever, and so well written, and such a wonderful world(s) to be set in, wonderful characters... it's just brilliant. But could the films really live up to the books?

Well, the answer is no. But do we want them to? The first book even on it's own has hundreds of pages, thousands of characters, millions of thoughts and emotions... the film is 113 minutes long. But film is a completely different medium for it to be expressed in. And it was pretty damn good!

Firstly - it is accurate to the book. Nothing important at all is missed out, and it was all done in relatively the right order. The right characters in the right places, just the right amount of things giving that nod to people who have read the books, and right amount of time spent on each element of a film (characters, action (Iorek kicks more ass then ANYONE), fantasy world, could have had a little more on the relationships between characters I guess). What adaption was done was done well.

One thing they did change was the ending. SPOILER START, HIGHLIGHT TO READ They ended the movie after Lyra sets off with Roger to go to Lord Asriel and bring him the Alethiometer. But at some point, she delivered the line "I'll bring him exactly what he needs" (i.e. Roger), suggesting they will turn the other two books into films - which I think is no bad thing. Also, on the video game there is an unlockable clip they filmed that goes a little bit further into the first book - up to when they arrive at the house and Asriel shouts "I didn't send for you! Anyone but you!" Clip [here] if you want it. SPOILER END.

The actors were pretty awesome. Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman appeared superbly as Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter, with Ian McKellen (who ALWAYS sounds like he's eating a McVities Digestive) voicing Iorek (who happens to be more kickass than ANYONE). Derek Jacobi and Christopher Lee popped up briefly for great performances. And Dakota Blue Richards, the pretty new comer playing Lyra, gave a wonderful performance - with the exception of a couple of accent things, she delivered the character perfectly.



All in all, I really enjoyed the film. Not too long, it was pretty faithful to the books, good acting, nothing cringeworthy, and the added bonus of having THE MOST AWESOME THING EVER. Namely, Iorek the Armoured Bear. He kicks so much ass it's unbelievable.

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The Golden Compass is out in cinemas now! But first, buy His Dark Materials (1. Northern Lights, 2. The Subtle Knife, 3. The Amber Spyglass) and read them - they're AWESOME!

WH Smiths Vouchers Officially Suck

Christmas shopping trip today. It was fun. Saw a movie, had fun with my mates.

But WH Smiths fobbed me out of £91. That's right: nine - one. Ninety one. £91.

You know how relatives insist on giving vouchers for certain shops instead of cash? So you end up with a backlog of book vouchers and WH Smith gift cards that you never spend and just end up going out of date? Also, my old school used WH Smith vouchers as the rewards on prize day (because obviously you can't give money to an 8 year-old: they might go and buy drugs *shock horror*).

Well I had a lot of those. I was quite good at spending them on books and stuff, but I still ended up with millions of them. So I thought I'd do something really useful. I took [i]all[/i] the vouchers I had left to the WH Smith in my town, and got them all put on one [i]new[/i] card. I got a receipt with it (very careful about that one), and they said that I could use it anywhere, quite happily, it would all be there, perfectly safe.

So I went to the shopping centre with my mates to do our Christmas shopping. Went round all the shops, being a little easier with my cash than I normally would be, knowing that I could buy all my presents from WH Smith with the £91 voucher (CDs, books, cards, calendars, the lot). I'd only bought 1 game (£20), and I had about £30 left in cash.

So I get all my stuff - 4 CDs for various relatives, loads of cards, a couple of books for various people, two calendars, and a DVD. I'd worked it out - it fitted into £91 - just.

I got to the till (after a fairly long wait - I mean, at least they could employ people intelligent enough to use a Goddamn till - IT'S NOT HARD), and handed the stuff over. It fitted in my £91 budget, and I handed the card over.


"Oh, I'm sorry, we can't accept those today?" (I'm translating a bit here from whatever corrupt dialect of English he was speaking).
"What do you mean you can't accept it?
"Well, if you come in tomorrow, you'll be fine. We're just not accepting them instore today."
"Why?"
"Hang on, I'll check *goes off to check with manager or whoever* Nope, sorry, not today. Tomorrow will be fine."


WELL I'M NOT FRICKING THERE TOMORROW!!!! I'M THERE TODAY!!! And I'll tell you why it was SO annoying. Because in order to buy just 2 of the things I was wanting to buy (which I wouldn't be able to buy anywhere else), I had to use up my remaining £30 cash. Which meant I had no money for lunch, cinema or getting home. Which left me leeching off my friends for the rest of the day. Not fantastic.




ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOAR. OK, I haven't had a moan for a while. But I just needed to rant it out. Grrrrr... Ever happened to you?

We Will Never Forget - Will we?

Last week was Remembrance Week, and we remembered the victims of both world wars, and of any conflict up to and including the present day. 52 years after the end of the Second World War, planet Earth hasn't yet experienced warfare on the same scale. At least, we haven't had World War 3 yet. We've had the Cold War, the Vietnam War and now the Iraq War, and hostilities not directly involving England are always going on. But nothing has been recognized as a "World War", so to speak. Which is probably fair enough.

While sitting in chapel last Sunday, listening to the names of countless old masters and boys being read off the school's honour boards, hearing the Last Post played on the trumpet, singing stirring battle hymns, I had a look around the chapel and noticed something. Everyone was old. No jokes, the average age (bearing in mind there were about 300 boarding 13-18 year olds in there) was about three-hundred odd. And that got me thinking. I had a couple of long sermons to do the maths, and this is what I worked out:

Assuming the youngest you could get in the army is 18, to have lived through the last year of WW2, you would have to be 81. Not impossible, I admit. But in 5 years time, they'll be 86. Still quite possible for them to be alive, but give it 10 years and they're 91. An ample portion of war veterans will be dead by then. So who will "Remember them?" Well, their children I suppose.

But take it back a little further - the First World War. To have lived through that, you would have to be 107. Unlikely. Even your children would be getting on nowadays.



Now I really don't want to belittle the occasion, I honestly don't. It's noble, and honest, and respectful. It would be appalling if we didn't remember them. But that's my point - give it 20 years there will be basically no war veterans left. Only their children will be left to remember them. But the remaining generations have no experience of war. We didn't know them before they were sent to war. We never lived through a blitz, through air raids, through our loved ones and family being annihilated by people we had never met - will we remember them? Sure, the occasion will still be observed, that's only natural. But I have a sad feeling that the enthusiasm for the event will dwindle in coming years.

I'll finish with the beautiful piece of poetry that I find really makes the occasion:

For the Fallen

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.

Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.

Laurence Binyon

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Video Games Live: London 2007

The day after the London MCM Expo, I was off to another geeky event. However, this time it wasn't a social gathering. It was more of a concert. The video gamer's equivalent of Glastonbury. Taking place at the Royal Festival Hall, Video Games Live came to London, performing in England for the second time ever.

VGL was co-founded by Tommy Tallarico (Composer (Spider-Man, Metroid Prime, Mortal Combat, Timecrisis, Earthworm Jim, Advent Rising)) and Jack Wall (Composer/Conductor (Myst III & IV, Jade Empire, splinter cell)) and is now touring the world. Tallarico presents the show complete with cutting edge video-screen visuals, state-of-the-art lighting and lasers, while Wall conducts whatever fantastic orchestra is at his disposable in real time with whatever activities are going on on-stage or on-screen. The music performed changes every concert, thanks to about 25 constantly changing segments.

Basically, it's a concert of video game music. Hardcore, isn't it?



On this particular occasion, segments included music from:

-Bioshock (fantastically creepy with the on-screen video)
-Metal Gear Solid music (some of the best music there)
-A medley of classic arcade games (wonderful comedic imitations of the "bleeps" and "bloops" as -Tallarico liked to call them)
-Liberi Fatali (Final Fantasy 8), One Winged Angel (Final Fantasy 7), Simple and Clean (Kingdom Hearts) (sadly, Square didn't allow VGL to use footage from their games, so we were stuck with Disney animation for Kingdom Hearts (wonderful, but not quite the same mood as the game) and a blank screen for Final Fantasy)
-Starcraft 2
-World of Warcraft
-Tron
-Harry Potter 5
-Civilization IV
-Sonic (great music for some great clips)
-Mario and Zelda (Koji Kondo's masterpieces performed at top quality by a symphony orchestra really were awe-inspiring)
-Halo (I doubt they've ever done a concert without this segment)

There were plenty of special guests, including:

-Martin Leung (The Video Game/Blindfolded Pianist - he started out as a video on YouTube, now he's touring the world with some of the biggest names in video game music and their massive concert - he played his brilliant Final Fantasy medley, the Tetris theme(very fast) and Super Mario World)
-Martin O'Donnell (Halo composer - he gave away a little too much about how to find one of the skulls using his music)
-James Hannigan (Harry Potter Video Games composer - he was greeted with a few boos actually... come on England! when did we stop being proud of Harry Potter?!)


Thanks to Microsoft's generous sponsoring (this announcement was greeted by more than a few boos!), there were twenty or so Xboxes in one of the Exhibition rooms. Halo 3 was quickly swamped by the über-nerds, but Ace Combat 6, Viva Piñata: Party Animals, a couple of racers, and Spiderman: Friend or Foe were all demoed there. There was a Guitar Hero competition as well, with Microsoft related prizes.

While we were queuing up for Xboxes and drinks there was some decent cosplay going on. Not as much as at the Expo the previous day (thank God), but still enough for a nice line-up before the concert. Purple Tentacle (from Day of the Tentacle) won, with Samus, some guy dressed in an awesome Wolf Link costume, and Midna as runners up.

Quite worryingly, I recognized several people from the Expo the day before... But then again, I was probably just reading too much into the categories of geek myself and my friend thought up (old geek, wannabe geek, fat geek, geek with geek girlfriend, geek with cute girlfriend wondering what she's doing there, Japanese geek, geek trying to look cool, etc...)

During the concert, there were two opportunities for members of the audience to get up on stage and play some games for prizes. One guy (wearing a "ninj4" T-shirt) had to wear a T-shirt with the space invaders ship on the back (he initially tied it round his head in a bandanna), then had to hop left and right on the stage, as they tracked his movement on screen, pressing a button he had been given to fire. Another two were called up to play Frogger. The prizes give to each winner were an Xbox 360, a copy of Halo 3, and some random animé/manga tat... Just for playing a game! In fact, the guy who played Space Invaders lost, and the Xbox 360 was a consolation prize. Don't get that much free stuff at normal concerts, do you?


From the beginning poem (Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF) to the finale aided by the geek equivalent of waving cigarette lighters in the air - waving phones, DSes, PSPs, even laptops in the air ("hang on, hang on, the PSPs are still booting up"), VGL managed to create a fantastic atmosphere for such fantastic music. Next time it's in England, I'm definitely going! An interesting fact. VGL was the first sold out concert for the Royal Festival Hall, one of the biggest and best concert halls in England, since it's refurbishment 4 or 5 months ago. That tells you all you need to know!

London MCM Expo 2007

After a half hour train journey, fifteen minutes on a jam packed tube and a short ride on the DLR, myself and my friend Jack arrived, equipped with our savings and a video camera, at the sheer enormity that is the ExCel center. Upon entering, my eyes were first drawn to the World Fruit and Veg Showcase on one side of the gigantic hangar, and then to the Pie shops and Costa Coffees scattered in various strategic places everywhere. Fortunately, they weren't what I was there for, and my attention shortly turned to the queues in one of the halls off the main hangar.

First impressions... well, I was quite pleased. Having spent most of our school lives thinking we were incredibly geeky, it was nice to know that compared to most people in that massive hall, we were probably the most normal. I got some good film of some people in cosplay (I'd say more than 50% were in cosplay) and a lot of random leaflets people were handing out.

Thanks to our Fast Track tickets (they were cheap as well: £10 for fast track entry to the entire day) we were shortly being marched out of the hall and back down the main hall, past the pie shop, past the World of Warcraft convention, and into...

It's massive. An amalgamation of the senses... Colour and noise overwhelms you... and then you realize that you're staring at a massive hangar full of Japanese tat and cosplayers who should not be cosplaying.

The walls were lined with such a ridiculous quantity of animé plushies, key rings and necklaces. Photo and poster stands were everywhere, and weapons and wallscrolls were being oggled at, but only bought by those with a lot of money. Moving towards the center, there were racks of manga and masses of animé DVDs being sold cheaply (and probably illegally). Food stores (selling pocky and super sour sweets) and cosplay weapon checks were bustling, while Warner Bros. HD previews and (dubbed *growl*) animé clips played on big plasma screens. A generous number of Xboxes and the occasional Wii or PS3 made up the gaming section, with plenty of pre-releases for us to play. Legions of nerds sat playing Star Wars and Halo trading card games and Magic:The Gathering, while the more athletic sportsmen/women played Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero while it was projected onto the wall so everyone could see your success or epic, epic failure.

The special guests this year were immense. There was Ed Quinn, Erica Cerra and Jordan Hinson from A Town Called Eureka, Jacqueline McKenzie, Richard Kahan, Billy Campbell and Jeff Combs from The 4400, Jimmy Jean-Louis and Nora Zehetner from Heroes, and Marina Sirtis (Counselor Deanna Troi in Star Trek). Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin were there plugging Artemis Fowl: The Graphic Novel (which is awesome by the way), while Johnny Yong Bosch, Laura Bailey and Colleen Clinkenbeard (animé voice actors) and Tony Lee, Billy Tucci, Mark Sparacio, Lee Townsend, Ian Sharman, Rich Johnston and Dan Boultwood (all comic artists) were all present as well. There were opportunities to get your picture taken with the stars, as well as lots of Q&A sessions.

Then there was the cosplay contest. I got a lot of it on film, and will upload and edit later (when I figure out how to connect my camera to the computer), but for now a description will have to do: Oh the horror... Like all Expos, there was a healthy mix of teenage girls dressed as boys doing Yaoi, bearded men dressed as 14 year old girls, and fat women pretending they're thin enough to fit into lycra. It was truly frightening, yet ridiculously fulfilling and amusing. You just didn't want to stop them embarrassing themselves, probably because they all did it with smiles on their faces - they were truly enjoying it!

The cosplayers combined with the numerous "Free Hugs" and "Free Glomps" signs created a strong (if frightening) friendly atmosphere, provided you didn't have a paranoia about being bear hugged by a complete stranger.



7 hours after entering, I had bought my fair share of Kingdom Hearts manga, had almost every leaflet under the sun forced upon me, met at least 6 of my friends from the forums, seen two (male) FMA characters experiment in various sexual poses in a massive crowd of people, watched Naruto give Sasuke a lapdance to the tune of "Girlfriend", and avoided so many free hugs and glomps I was breathless...

Successful Expo, I'd say. See you there next year?

Tonbridge School Arts Festival

Last Sunday heralded the beginning of Tonbridge School's Art Festival: Festival Evensong in the Tonbridge School Chapel, including an external vocal group, the chapel choir, and the majestic Marcussen organ (pictured below, click for larger images). The evening was a soaring success, with "Steal Away" and the jazz trio setting of Nunc Dimitis coming off superbly.

The Commitments had performed on the Friday and Saturday before, both times to rapturous applause and praise. On the same day as the Festival Evensong was an Art workshop, "Picture This", a production of Cinderella by "Unpacked" and a screening of "The Last King of Scotland".

On the following Tuesday, there was a Lunchtime Concert in Tonbridge Parish Church, to the delight of the community, and Brian Patten (one of the Liverpool poets, of The Mersey Sound fame) gave a superb reading of his poetry in the E.M.Forster theatre. The next day, there was a Rock Band Workshop in Big School, revolutions dance company gave a Dance-Theatre showcase, and the arts week Writers in Residence (Peter and Ann Sansom, both well known and respected poets) gave readings in the Cawthorne Lecture Theatre. On Thursday, Funkstylerz presents Life of a b-boy in the E.M.Forster theatre.

On Friday, Marcus Brigstocke gave two stand up fantastic comedy shows to rapturous applause, and on Saturday, Mark Forkgen, the school's own director of music, conducted The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (the British orchestra based in London, often referred to as the national orchestra of Britain) in a stunning concert of Mozart, Wagner and Beethoven.



The Arts Festival has always been successful, and is certainly worth checking out each year. For a school, the immense range of activities and performances on offer truly are tremendous.

Robin Hood 's back!

That's right, Robin Hood is back on our screens, as of last week's tentatively introductory episode. Last year's series wasn't bad: it was easy watching, not a massively involving drama. A bit of action, some romance here and there, a semi-believable plot - everything you need for a watchable Saturday evening program. If you ignored a lot of inconsistencies and general badness, it was genuinely enjoyable.

After last week's episode, I was left feeling slightly violated. They had taken a program I considered enjoyable in its own right, and taken it back to the drawing board. But instead of some better story arcs, more action-packed fight scenes and more talented actors, they've completely changed the ethos of the show! The plot is stupid, the fighting is rubbish, the script is more agonizing than I remember, and the main character has a haircut that makes him look like a walking mop! Whoever wrote the script needs to be fired! There are not circular saws in medieval England. The plots are more extravagant than a lot of Doctor Who episodes, but bear in mind we're not far in the future with a time-traveling alien in Robin Hood... Only decent thing is that there appears to be a story arc this year (although it looks like it's complete and utter rubbish).


The same night saw the return of another of my favorite shows: Top Gear. Thankfully, in this case it is a return of genuinely good TV. Very entertaining, slightly less informative, and just as weird, wonderful and wacky as I remember it. The gags are even better this year!

I leave you with one of my favorite Top Gear clips: What happened when Jeremy Clarkson met Simon Cowell!

The Institute of Contemporary Music Performance

At my school, on a Wednesday afternoon, we have CCF: Combined Cadet Force. Basically, you go into either Army, Navy or RAF and (for the mostpart) waste a lot of time standing still, marching and being shouted at by a short man with a shrill voice and a stupid hat. Of course, that's a little harsh, the CCF courses enforce leadership skills, teamwork skills and I'm sure there are some people who enjoy it. Plus, Duke of Edinborough is a useful qualification to have when an employer looks at your CV. However, when people come home from trips literally dripping with mud and their stomachs empty, I do kind of lose faith in the education system.

Fortunately for myself (being a bit of a wuss), I managed to get out of CCF and do Music activities along with about 60 other similarly minded people. We do things like Chamber Music, Brass Groups, Masterclasses with visitors and small concerts. Right now I'm doing the paperwork for my ARCO (Associated Royal College of Organists) exam and a string group (which I admittedly haven't bothered going to for the last three weeks).

Today it was CCF field day for my year, so the majority of 140-odd boys disappeared off to punish themselves in a variety of imaginative ways, leaving myself and 11 others to have our very own "Music Field Day." Basically, there was an Improvisation Workshop in the morning (we got quite a jam going, surprisingly), some Chamber Music in the afternoon and a Conducting Workshop in the evening.

Before lunch, some guy from the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance came and gave a presentation about... well, Contemporary Music. The industry, possible jobs in it, everything. And in fact it was very interesting. The guy certainly knew what he was talking about (well, he air-guitared the first few bars of every single song he mentioned) and enthused me quite a bit. He talked about various jobs you could get in the industry, including Singer, Songwriter, Singer/Songwriter, Music Producer, Studio Musician, Backing Band, Music Journalist, the list goes on. He also spoke briefly about the sort of courses the ICMP offer. They do full 3 year courses and one year courses, all of which you emerge from with a diploma or degree of some kind, and they also do 3 month courses and Summer/weekend courses for those of us who are just trying it out. The ICMP certainly have a lot to do with some pretty big names (Take That, Will Young, Katie Melua, KT Tunstall, Mick Jagger, Keane (who incidentally went to my school)) and I would recommend checking their website.

Considering our music department is mostly classically minded, I was pleased and surprised to see something like this happening, and I hope more stuff like it makes it way onto our timetables!

But more importantly, if you're a guitarist, bassist, drummer or vocalist, and are interested in getting into that scene, the ICMP certainly seems to be a great way to do it.

Heroes

You know that feeling, when you've just finished something gargantuan, or seen something incredible, or felt something awesome? You know how your first urge is to preserve that feeling? By sharing?

I just finished watching the entire series 1 of Heroes, the science fiction drama television series, created by Tim Kring. After being aired in America on NBC in September 2006, it came to the UK Sci-Fi channel in February this year. It had great success, and soon it made its way to BBC 2 where I caught it for the first time. For the first time in over a decade, BBC 2 surpassed its sister channel, BBC 1 in numbers of viewers.

After a fairly slow starting couple of introductory episodes, the series really began to heat up, with the Heroes beginning to use their newly discovered powers and some of the main story arcs being introduced. Mysteries abound and some of the antagonists surface. But as in any good drama, all is not what it seems and the many, many plot lines begin weave themselves together into a strong, emotive storyline.

The acting is superb, with each actor perfect for their part. I can't think of a single cheesily-American-accented over-actor with corny lines, or a single walking-cliché. Every character is believable and a Hero in their own right, and with the complex storyline they become deep and genuine.

As well as fantastic characters and brilliant storylines, there are of course the heroes' superpowers. With a fantastic special effects team, the action is exciting and realistic. Spontaneous regeneration, flying, telekinesis and radioactivity are all part and parcel of the show, along with literally hundreds of other powers in the incredible world created in the vivid imagination of Tim Kring.


Heroes manages to create that sublime combination of action, plot, and drama. It appeals to everybody; fans of comic books, fans of drama, fans of suspense and action, and fans of a shows where a new world is created and builds up slowly but surely to a fantastic finale.

From me, it gets a solid 95% Fantastic in every way: I'll be buying it on DVD as soon as I can get funds!
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Watch Heroes Online:
Season 1
1. Genesis
2. Don't Look Back
3. One Giant Leap
4. Collision
5. Hiros
6. Better Halves
7. Nothing to Hide
8. Seven Minutes to Midnight
9. Homecoming
10. Six Months Ago
11. Fallout
12. Godsend
13. The Fix
14. Distractions
15. Run!
16. Unexpected
17. Company Man
18. Parasite
19. .07%
20. Five Years Gone
21. The Hard Part
22. Landslide
23. How to Stop an Exploding Man

Season 2
1. Four Months Later


TV-Links Source
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Buy Heroes from Amazon.co.uk

No Doctor Who Series 5 in 2009!

Following previous article: "No Tennant in Series 5?"

The BBC have confirmed that there will be no series 5 in 2009. Instead, Tennant will star in 3 Doctor Who specials. A full length series 5 will be aired in 2010, but the Doctor Who spokeswoman was unable to comment whether or not Tennant would return for it.

BBC News Article
Doctor Who Website Article

Instead of playing the time travelling hero in a 2009 series, Tennant will be doing some more classical acting with the Royal Shakespeare Company (the BBC say it isn't confirmed, but he's in the RSC program).

What a disappointement! 3 specials won't be enough to quench the thirst of Doctor Who fans! Hopefully when it comes back full time in 2010, the producers and writers will have made the show even better. I get the feeling this "gap-year" might be a result of the complaints the Doctor Who team were issuing about their work conditions: (long hours, no breaks, etc...)

Brian wins £100,000!

Thats it then. Big Brother 8 is over. We get our lives back. Well, that's something...

Fans of the show will know that last night, Brian walked out of the Big Brother house as a winner, and £100,000 richer. He received 60.3% of the vote and followed Amanda and Sam in second place, Liam in third place, Ziggy in a slightly disgruntled fourth place, Carole in fifth place, and Jonty (and Munkitty Tunkitty) in sixth place. When asked what he would spend the money on, Brian replied "I'm gonna go shopping!"

Series 8 has been an interesting one. Channel 4 narrowly avoided a race row right at the beginning, thanks to Emily's racist comment, Charley has been dubbed as one of the most hated people in Britain (and she's milked it), we've had spankers, gay museum obsessives, twins, old people break dancing... the list goes on. But unfortunately, we were left at the end with 6 (well, 7) people who all got on. Which made for quite a boring last week. But isn't that the whole nature of the show? If you vote out the people you hate, then the people left in the house should all be nice... right? Surely we should vote out the boring people, and keep in the people who provide the best entertainement. In that respect, should Charley have won? Or the twins? I suppose we wanted the money to go to Brian, and it did...


Anyway, Big Brother's over, and that signals the end of the summer. The days are already getting shorter (in England anyway) and soon the leaves will be dropping off the trees and we'll be wearing scarves and long coats. How depressing ¬.¬

No Tennant in Dr Who series 5?

Having received the Royal Shakespeare Company magazine, I have noticed something interesting. David Tennant, our very own Doctor Who, will be playing Hamlet in Hamlet (funnily enough) and Berowne in Love's Labour's Lost.

Hamlet runs from the 3rd of July 2008 right through to November, and Love's Labours Lost runs from October 2nd. The filming of Doctor Who series 4 is taking place right now, August 2007. So the filming of Doctor who series 5 will logically take place in August 2008. But how can David do that if he's in Hamlet every day?

Could this be confirmation that David Tennant will not appear in Doctor Who series 5?


Voyage of the Damned, this year's Christmas Special, will guest star Kylie Minogue as Astrid, set aboard the Titanic. As for series 4, Russel T. Davies has stated that he's not quite finished bringing back classic enemies...

Greetings!

For a teenager, I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking, so I reckon I might as well share some of that with... well, anyone who cares, to be honest. I also happen to like writing. That's convenient.

So, what can you expect from this blog? As the title might suggest, absolutely anything. I'll post random thoughts and ramblings and perhaps and occasional rant. If there's anything big going down in the world news-wise I'll probably have something to say about that. Games, music, films, chances are I'll review anything I do and stick it on here for anybody that cares.

That's it for now. Over an' out.