Misc. including a mildly spoilery Doctor Who remark and the Radio 4 pips

Two things slightly odd crossed my radar today.
Firstly was the revelation that Radio 4 generates its pips live. You may wonder what I'm warbling about.
They announce the hour and that the news is coming. (You also hear it on, amongst others radios 1 and 2 but 4 does it without any sort of musical bed.) Here they are in all their glory.
And tonight their pip machine wasn't working. So Eddie Mair, the wonderfully quirky evening broadcaster, did an impromptu piece and yes, these things are generated live.
I'd assumed that nowadays it was a sample played at a precise time. Instead it seems that there's a pip generator and a back-up pip generator that both weren't working.
You would have thought it would be pre-recorded samples triggered at precise times but apparently not.

Next up is Doctor Who.
Mr. Moffat's been talking to the press again and what he's had to say is interesting. It's spoilery in that it rules something out so, well you've been warned,

spoilery talk here

The Daleks aren't coming back in the near future.
Which isn't a bad thing. Whilst I seem to be in the minority in enjoying last year's Victory of the Daleks, I did kind of feel that their stock was cheapened somewhat in Tennant's time by appearing every season.
Yes, the media seems to think that whenever someone leaves the show, they get exterminated by the Daleks. And it's true that the show wouldn't have lasted most likely, had it not been for Terry Nation's genius creations.
But they're best used in small measures. It builds up the threat level.
And it gives the writing staff time to think of fresh takes.
It's been done before. In 1967 the Daleks were written off supposedly for ever in The Evil of The Daleks. They wouldn't reappear until 1972's time-slip classic Day of The Daleks.
Yeah, I'm with Steven Moffat on this one. (And, yes, I don't think this is misdirection before a shock reappearance by them in Saturday's mid-season closer. They wouldn't be so crass.)

The Hangover Part 2 - review

As a rule, I don't care for blokey comedies, particularly ones of the gross-out variety.
But I was persuaded to see the original Hangover and was pleasantly surprised. There were three plus points:
1. Filming on location, giving the proceedings a veracity
2. Solid comic acting by Ed Helms and Bradley Cooper
3. Alan.

In fact, Alan's character, and Zach Galifanakis's portrayal, took the film into both darker places and, due to his naivete, also more innocent places. Sometimes simultaneously.

This sequel has all 3 points but it's not as good.
Partly the issue is the long-winded intro (if you thought this review had a laborious start, it's nothing trust me).
The other main problem is that Alan's plain unlikeable for the opening third. Yes, it makes sense that he would be possessive of the members of the Wolfpack.
The direction is, as with the first one, very good at capturing a sense of place. Bangkok looks both gorgeous and, at times, menacing. It's also not quite as cliched a view of Thailand as you might think (one of the big cliches is shown comparatively briefly but the other is mercifully ducked).

Methinks, another issue is structure. Cooper and Helms have said they didn't feel they had earned the right to make any drastic changes to the narrative framework.
Which doesn't help to be honest as you can see the mechanics quite clearly in some places (particularly as I watched the original the night before).
And, if there's a third offering (which seems likely), can we move away from wedding plots? I suspect a christening of Doug's kid would be the most plausible (with a missing baby).

It's fun, don't get me wrong. Helms and Cooper are charming as ever. It's just I won't want to buy this installment on DVD for posterity.

Doctor Who - The Almost People (spoilers)

Well, that was a lot stronger than the first episode.

It went darker places.
Solid acting all-round help finally bring this to life, a minor miracle given how unimpressed I was by the first part.
And also, in retrospect, last week's offering had a lot of water-treading to do to conclude with that cliffhanger.
So, free of that burden, this installment explored the dilemmas of having clones wandering about and the inherent questions of identity and what it means to be human.

Mucho spoilers

And this whole storyline was clearly foreshadowing for THAT cliffhanger.
Amy, trapped in a booth, about to give birth whilst watched over by the eyepatch-sporting woman.
Easily the best cliffhanger of the Matt Smith era.
And I love how it calls back to all the deaths of Rory we've seen. He's kept on dying but coming back alongside (for this season at least) a fake Amy Pond. And the Tardis was right. The only water in the forest is a River.

I still think we'll have a Ganger get-out for the dead Doctor mystery.
But now the Doctor knows he's going to die so maybe he'll be able to cook up a better plan than that.
The twist as to which Doctor was real was unexpected. To be honest, that question hadn't crossed my mind. And it was such a wonderful and in character way for Amy to spill the beans to the Doctor.

On the whole Ganger question, yes, it slightly devolved into a monster-of-the-week but at least we saw that one Ganger lived and we saw that Gangers weren't as monstrous as the humans. It would have been more fun (and messier) if both an original and their Ganger survived. (Didn't think that would be my sole criticism before I started watching this part)
And, so after all we weren't seeing the beginning of the Autons or the Sontarans or even a breakdown in Amy and Rory's marriage. But I somewhat suspect we're leading up to the Ponds' exits.

God knows what's going to happen next week. I hope we'll get a final answer as to whether River is Amy or Amy's daughter or none of the above.

Alicia Keys v ticket touts

Next month Alicia Keys is in town to play the Royal Albert Hall in a one-off gig to mark a decade since the release of "Songs in A minor"
Yes, ten years already....

But that's not the remarkable thing.
What is very interesting is the ticketing arrangement (yes, I know I have banging on about Olympic tickets recently and I'll resume to normal non-ticket non-sport service soon).
To gain admission to the RAH, you need not only your ticket but someone in your party needs photo ID to show that they're the buyer of the ticket. Here's the RAH announcement on it.

I'm in favour of this in principle. It'll reduce touts. (It can't stop it as you'll always get unscrupulous touts and desperate fans wanting to chance it)
But it'll be interesting to see if the Albert Hall follow through on this.
I remember in the build up to the France 98 world cup seeing much UK government-funded TV ads saying that fans will be turned away at the gates if they come with tickets in someone else's name. This, to the best of my knowledge, didn't actually happen.
But it does happen at Glasto.
Yes, the Alicia Keys fans might need to be a bit patient in the queue in case someone is there sans ID. And, yes, there may well be some, if not ugly then sad, scenes.
Though, if this becomes the norm for big gigs in London, it'll eat away at the touts and their habits of bulk-buying anything at sizeable venues even if they've never heard of the acts concerned (thus reducing access to real fans).

So, Alicia and management, more power to your elbows.....

On Olympic tickets

The Olympics are coming to London.
You may have heard.
Last month we completed our application for the ballot.
In June we find out what tickets we are getting for London 2012.
And this month, well, this month they take the money out. Despite us not knowing what we've got yet.

It is an odd system but apparently how other Olympics do it.
Though the thing that bugs me is that they keep on switching the day the money comes out.
Yes we are still within May but it had been suggested money would be withdrawn at the start of the month.
Delay it by a week or two until a date when you are sure you will be ready. Not this shifting timescale. I appreciate there are bigger things in life to fret about though as an Olympic consumer, I am a tad hacked off right now....

Peter Reid - you're awesome

We're straying a bit here from the usual geeky fare.
However, I just want to give genuine thanks to Peter Reid, the current (at time of writing) manager of my football club Plymouth Argyle.
This time last year we hired him, having been relegated into League One.
Now, we have fallen into League Two and my respect for him is immense.
On the face of it, this might seem very odd. However, the club have had severe financial problems.
Our most important away fixtures have been in the Royal Courts of Justice, pleading against winding-up orders for unpaid tax bills.
Players and backroom staff alike have not been paid.
The majority shareholder has been disinterested in stepping in to help protect his investment.
Some managers would have jumped ship.
Not Peter Reid. Instead he's been paying the heating bills out of his own pocket and seemingly doing everything he can to keep the club afloat.
He has no connection to the region that I'm aware of so this isn't part of any boyhood love for the club. This is his professionalism. His desire to the job he's been hired to do (even when he hasn't been paid for it).
There is some speculation that he might be lured away. And, if he does, I'm ok with that because when the club needed a solid friend, a rock, he was there.
God bless you, Peter Reid.

Faulks on Fiction

As a rule, I tend to avoid companion books to TV series. Too often they're dumbed down versions of the author's other work.
Or are too reliant on your having seen the original show thus giving a feeling of someone blathering on about a great party you missed.
This however is a solid primer.
Sebastian Faulks, author of Charlotte Gray and Birdsong amongst others, groups together characters from British novels and uses them to explore not only the novel and their function in it but, sometimes, the genre.

Now I'm nowhere near as widely read as Faulks so I don't know how contentious some of his essays are. Whilst I found Chanu Ahmed's character in Brick Lane so off-putting that I gave up on the book, I can see why Faulks files him under the Snob category.  Certainly Faulks's pieces on Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Heathcliff were spot-on.
And I've since started reading Vanity Fair on the strength of this.
He doesn't out-right spoil but gives you enough of a taster for you to want to read the novel.

Also, in the James Bond chapter, there's a glimpse into his writing process as he describes how he wrote his Bond novel Devil May Care. Admittedly I haven't read that novel but his analysis of Bond is interesting.
The Sherlock Holmes section is also a somewhat affectionate look into the difficulties of writing genre fiction. (And there's an observation about Watson that I won't spoil here, but it is absolutely hilarious).

Once or twice, I feel that I'm not part of Faulks's target audience. He compares one character to an Archers character (suggesting to me we're aiming for middle-aged middle class readers here). However these are only fleeting.
All told, it's thought-provoking and made me want to explore (some of) the books covered that I hadn't read.
These can only be good things.

Doctor Who - Rebel Flesh (spoilers)

Two part stories can be a risk.
If the first episode's weak, then you're probably not looking forward to the next installment.
This is particularly true when this story is going to be the penultimate taste of new TV Dr Who until the autumn.

As with The Curse Of The Black Spot, the supporting cast are unlikeable.
Yes, there's a knotty moral dilemma that it looks like the show will deal with head-on. In that way it reminds me very much of Malcolm Hulke's Silurian stories from Pertwee's era.
Unfortunately the plot hasn't caught alight and instead feels like an ethical debate over 90 minutes.

So, yeah, I'm hoping that next week's will be somewhat better.

Spoilery thoughts and speculation follow this photo of Rory and Amy

I genuinely can't see how we can get another episode out of this.
So is something going to come in from left-field?
Like the eye-patch lady making more than a fleeting appearance...

I also hope that the Ganger Doctor won't end up being the one we see get killed in The Impossible Astronaut. This must be a red herring, surely?
Discounting Tennant's hand-Doctor, it's been a very long time since we've had a character resemble the Doctor. (Which seemed to happen with such frequency in the 60s and 70s that the companions must have established safety words)

Also, is this the start of the Nestene Consciousness or at least their Auton-ising process?
Might we get final resolution as to whether Rory is still an Auton?
And is his friendship with Jennifer going to cause a rift between him and Amy? Methinks yes, even if it's just temporary.

Whatever happens next week, it needs to be more interesting than the first part and also not resolve the dead Doctor story-thread (because if it does, that will be the biggest disappointment in the show since the revelation of what Bad Wolf was all about)

The Long Now

Last week, I was cooped up in a hotel up north with work.
Little bits of news reached me like Chris Huhne and Ken Clarke's respective difficulties (UK politics for those not in the know). And that the route of the Olympic torch relay may or may not include Norwich. (Relax East Anglia, it does)

It wasn't until I was back home that I learnt that there was a belief that the Rapture was about to happen (an hour from now apparently as I write this).
Now I'm not going to comment on this too much (other than it reminds me somewhat of the start of Zadie Smith's novel White Teeth when a similar prediction fails to come off).
Though it did cause me to think back to the millennium and the fact that the generation growing up now doesn't really have a huge cultural date to look forward to, like the year 2000. Nowadays we just have people who cite specific dates based on bible-driven numerology or Mayan prophecies.
And those don't begin to have the symbolism of the year 2000. (I remember at the age of 9 being asked what I thought I would be up to. My prediction of being on an African desert island beach resort didn't quite come to pass. Instead I had a pleasant evening with my family in rural-ish Netherlands. )
2000 AD, Australia's science program Beyond 2000, Pulp's Disco 2000 - all eloquent reminders of how that year would signify the future.
And in early January of that year, I first heard of The Long Now. The idea that we had hit this landmark date but now we need to think what we should do for the rest of this new millennium. It resonated with me at the time as I was about to start my final year at uni and have my own Long Now.
One of their pet projects, supported by Brian Eno no less, was to have a clock that could carry on for centuries. Potentially long after humanity.
It was going to be made out of cheap materials that future generations won't want to salvage.
A location has been chosen (Mount Washington) and prototypes are on display in the Science Museum in London as well as in San Francisco.
It just seems a shame that, for whatever reason, such an elegant idea seems to have slipped from the public consciousness. And that notion of popularising long-term thinking seems to have faded with it......

Doctor Who : The Doctor's Wife

After last week's undercooked Pirates of the Caribbean riff, this was an absolute treat.
A Neil Gaiman-penned script was always going to be highly anticipated.
Fortunately this delivered in spades. The Moffat era has become increasingly like a fairy tale, especially when you think of the original aliens we've encountered.
This episode was like something from the darker reaches of the Brothers Grimm, equal measures terrifying and hilarious. The cast is top notch, especially Suranne Jones.
And crucially the plot just couldn't have happened in any other series, unlike last year's megastar-written episode from Richard Curtis.
It is dripping in the show's mythology but has a strong story to tell in it's own right. The show is at its best when it is a feast for the imagination and, yup, this episode is up there.
It's clearly an act of love by Gaiman and it is probably Matt Smith's best episode to date.

Now Eurovision's over for another year

The quality of entries this year was remarkably high.
So I was delighted that Azerbaijan and Italy came first and second, respectively. I had loved both those tunes since I heard them a few weeks back.
Italy's success in particular shattered the notion that there is a "Eurovision" song. If there is a place for exceptional jazz piano, there is a place for anything.

Take note UK.
Sure, 11th place was respectable given last year.
We need to carry on with tried and tested performers. And also having them sing songs tailored to them. So farewell to audience voting.
Yeah, in Eastern Europe, they still vote for who will represent them at Eurovision.
However, this is often the sole route for Polish/Hungarian etc. acts to generate an international following.
Acts over here will try to get onto X Factor first.

So, fairly established acts for us. It will be great to have ones that are still fresh.
Problem is that the Jessie J's will not want to do all the publicity all over Europe.
We either go for someone so big that it's not strictly necessary or someone who's prepared to put in the hours.
Of the giants, who would bite? Me, I think the BBC should ask Muse. It doesn't seem completely out of the question and they would write something powerful and fun. If that seems a bit too rocky for a BBC convinced that the Eurovision's camp (despite all the evidence), try Lily Allen.
If it has to be an up-and-comer, get Mark Ronson to produce.
But please don't make it a ballad as, shown time and time again recently, that don't get the votes.

Eurovision preview

Normally my televisual highlight of an evening would definitely be a Neil Gaiman-scripted Doctor Who episode. And it still probably will be. Even if they bring the Rani back tonight as rumoured.
However it'll be the warm-up act to Eurovision and, well, this looks like a vintage year.
Not for pointing and laughing (Jedward aside, few of the krazies have reached the final).

As has been the trend, there are a fair few credible efforts.
The Italian jazz piano entry is an excellent example of the genre.
Me fears though the classy vote will be split between that and the French tenor.
Georgia, Denmark and Moldova (once you get over the millinery) are all good altie efforts. They may not place highly but show that the competition isn't the camp festival of yore.
EU politics will probably rule out Germany (also Lina's song will be a difficult sell in the more religious nations).
Blue have been getting ominously big cheers on the floor. The song is just OK but I think their popularity will get the UK top 5.

My gut says that, unless Azerbaijan put on a better performance than they did in the semi, it will be a straight fight between Sweden's decidedly camp entry and Estonia's mix of Broadway-esque visual feast and catchy tune.

Classical music v Kissy Sell Out

(Apologies - this is a repost as the original seems to have fallen behind the Blogger sofa during their "difficulties" last night)

Radio 4 has been branching out, trying to shake off its fusty image a bit (whilst keeping The Archers, afternoon plays and other schedule staples for, well, mostly grandma).

But I was more than a bit surprised to hear Kissy Sell Out on the Today programme this morning. Listen here wherever you are on the globe  (It starts shortly after the 2h20 mark)

Kissy is one of Radio 1's hidden treasures. Given Chris Moyles's comments during his Comic Relief marathon, Kissy doesn't seem to be known amongst all of his Radio 1 colleagues.

He is very music-focussed and is wonderfully eclectic in his musical choice. He's also clearly passionate, infectiously so.

So, erm, what was he doing on big old serious Today?

He and Stephen Fry were giving a taste of a forthcoming gig at the Cambridge Union Society (the student union in less-Hogwartian terms).

The CSU are having them debate whether classical music is relevant to the youth of today. Fry was pro the Bach crowd's relevancy. Kissy is on the anti-s.

And me, I am inclined to agree with Kissy's points.

Classical music can be beautiful. And stirring. That's probably why so many riffs are nicked from it.

But it's the packaging, the branding.

Kissy has a point that the titles are off-puttingly ridiculous (but it'll be hard to get past that as renaming will enrage the old guard). There is an appetite for instrumentals. You don't need words to interest new audiences.

However, the way to bring in people, to change the image, is to do what happened at Latitude last year. On the eve of the festival, they had Nigel Kennedy energising the crowd. (Yeah, Latitude is a bit middle class, but it is indie-folk and hardly the Proms) If you're not familiar with Kennedy, go have a listen

That breaks down barriers. It shows people that this is music for them. ITV did the same trick by having Pavarotti sing Nessun Dorma for their coverage of the Italia 90 World Cup.

And less emphasis of the "difficulty" of listening to chewier music. That wins few friends and is frankly elitist.

So play it in festivals. Play it on the tube. (I have a recollection they have done this in Newcastle in an effort to reduce violence and it worked). Like any genre, (which is what it is, sorry) you need to catch people unawares.

But in any outreach program, don't rely on playing tiny snippets. You can't count the Champions League anthem, based on Zadok The Priest.

Rather like Radio 4, I think classical music is something that you experience the influence of from an early age but you tend to discover it for yourself as you get older. To grow into.

The debate will be here to rewatch apparently. Should be interesting....

In praise of The Greatest Show In The Galaxy

Mccoy's second season of Doctor Who was when things started to slot into place. With ratings still poor, it was a real backs-against-the-wall job and so the show would be brave. As well as nostalgic excursions (it was the 25th season, after all), there was The Happiness Patrol with its barely veiled attack on Thatcherism and, to close the season, The Greatest Show In the Galaxy.
Yeah, not the scariest title but the story itself was a kaleidoscope of fear and wonder.
A travelling circus has set up shop on the desert planet Segonax and said circus is the self-titled "The Greatest Show In The Galaxy"

The clowns are wonderfully creepy. We're treated to some back-story that Ace had a childhood fear of the circus but that's needed. These are proper sinister.
Especially a pre-Corrie Ian Reddington as the Chief Clown. The fear comes from their movements as much as the make-up.
Also there's the audience. The Family sit there for every performance. Their coldness is wonderfully theatrical.Watching. Judging. And sentencing to death acts that bore them.
Yes, to adult eyes, strewn throughout there's meta-commentary on the future of Doctor Who. It's future was uncertain due to low ratings. And a fanboy arrives who is still tragically devoted to the show despite being aware that its best days were behind it.

That is smuggled in amongst a dazzling display of images. Buses in a desert (years before Tennant) policed by a murderous bus conductor. The Gods of Ragnarok. Werewolves. And an utterly desperate gang of characters who can turn at any time on anyone. That last point really struck my nine year-old self. It's not remotely cosy.
Yes, there's pacing problems from time to time.
But it's a real high point of late 80s Who and could have served as a fitting but bittersweet last story (that honour, for almost seven years, fell instead to Survival and its puss-in-boots-i-ness.

Some signs illustrate erm... something

This was on the bathroom door at the Domus Romana visitor centre, Rabat, Malta.
I don't think anything more can be added to this one...

Doctor Who - The Curse of The Black Spot (mild spoilers)

When I was a kid, I wrote a Lego Pirate-inspired Doctor Who story in which Ace and the seventh Doctor found themselves on a 17th century Caribbean island attacked by pirates and, erm, robots.
So, I had some preconceptions going into tonight's offering.

Also it's brave steering the TARDIS into Pirates of The Caribbean territory and, well, this episode's not the weakest but certainly not the strongest.
Lily Cole is remarkably creepy as a siren preying on the ship's crew. Then again she's a model so looking menacing and ethereal isn't too huge a leap for her.
But the main issue is the characterisation, particularly of the pirates. It's just flat. There's an attempt to add human interest to Hugh Bonneville's captain but it's just too contrived.

<< Seriously.... >>

how dense is the captain not to have noticed his kid having stowed away for what appears to have been quite some time

This episode just feels like a first draft and the plot holes are gaping, particularly in the reveal.
A supernatural pirate piece will risk comparisons with PoTC and, yeah, there's no contest.

Next week is the Neil Gaiman episode so hopefully the show will return to awesomeness.

<< And here's some arc points >>

OK. We knew it wouldn't be arc-heavy as there was no "Previously", which also made me switch off a bit.
But who is it that keeps on intruding on Amy's dreams? And the pregnancy question is being rammed home again.
Is it not just Amy's baby phasing in and out but her as well? Yeah, it's a stretch.
Hopefully next week's instalment will start to answer some of the arc questions.

The Shadow Line : initial thoughts

Ever since I'd first heard of this, I was looking forward to it.
Chiwetel Ejiofor and Christopher Eccleston.
Together.
In a thriller.
Ejiofor and Eccleston are cop and gangland figure, respectively, both investigating the murder of a possible snitch in a world that evokes, for me, Ian Rankin's novels.


On the strength of the first episode, it's a little patchy though.
The acting is solid. In fact, Eccleston is terrific, inspiring both fear and sympathy. His sarcasm is a joy to behold as is his being a paternal figure. You can see why people want to work for him.
Rafe Spall is magnificent as a sinister (somewhat effette) nephew of the murder victim.


But there's a weird abstract nature to the piece. 
Yeah, you're not supposed to figure out what's going on in the first episode though too much distance can bring its own problems.
And it feels very abstract when the focus is on the cops. It's the dialogue, peppered with oblique references to unrevealed past events. One case in point is when the mother of a dead cop tells Ejiofor that the bullet that killed her son sometime ago is in the room with them.  Just as you're thinking she has a goulish choice in momentoes, Ejiofor's character reveals that the bullet is embedded in his skull.
The dialogue feels Pinter-esque and would work in a claustrophobic setting where everyone knows each other. Here it seems odd.
Less importantly, author Hugo Blick has said he's deliberately kept the city vague so that it's an Anywhere UK. Personal choice but this also snaps me out a bit. (It's always affected my enjoyment of Ed McBain's 87th Precinct).
It's well-written. There's some intriguing themes, particularly memory and the nature of self (Ejiofor's clearly lost some of his memory and Eccleston's wife is suffering from Alzheimer's).
Though that overly cryptic dialogue....


Will I watch more?
Most likely, but mainly for Spall and Eccleston's performances.

Kitty, Daisy and Lewis

Kitty, Daisy and Lewis first crossed my radar in 2005 at the peak of my 6Music obsession.
Back then, I had a real hunger for 50s/Motown-influenced tunes and KDL's rockabilly stylings definitely ticked that box.
For example, listen to Honolulu Rock'n'Roll: yes, it's higher tempo than the original  but it sounds to these modern ears as if it's dripping with the 1950s.
Which was made all the more extraordinary when you realised they were teenagers, and young teenagers at that.
I think their youth and the fact that they were siblings helped KDL capture the media's imagination (though that would have happened eventually given the strength of their music then as shown by Mean Son of a Gun )
And maybe, just maybe, this has seen them treated in the UK as a bit of a gimmick band.
A crying shame given their clear talent.

Last month I stumbled across I'm So Sorry, a single from March just gone. There's a melancholic edge. It's still refreshingly old-fashioned but more mature and ska-tinged.
And the video's an absolute joy. (Certainly at least one German music channel agrees with me as they had it on heavy rotation.)
In all honesty, they're possibly too niche to become huge.
But they need to be appreciated by a wider audience and maybe just maybe this is starting to happen. They certainly deserve it.

Cricket - yes, but it's good

Apologies for the brevity of this offering.
However there's some awesome commentary from the weekend's Glamorgan match (no cricket knowledge is needed)

Submarine (book edition)

Having not seen the movie adaptation of Submarine, I came to Joe Dunthorne's novel cold.
It tells the tale of only child Oliver, enduring life as a 16 year-old in 1997 Swansea.
Yup, 1997 and not the '80s which I gather is when the acclaimed film is set.

The novel's a debut. Honestly, I think that shows a bit in the structural issues though overall it's entertaining and very readable.
The reviews compare it to Catcher In The Rye. I suppose that's short-hand for teenage-narrated adult fiction. Me, it reminds me a lot of Sue Townsend's Adrian Mole books.
Oliver's a far more complex character than Adrian. Darker. More manipulative.
But the comparisons are obvious, and acknowledged in the book itself.
The 90s setting actually distinguishes the novel from the misadventures of Mr. Mole, especially given the frequent usage of the nascent interweb. (More so than I remember, but things might have been different in Swansea)

A fun read but it could have done with some tightening.

Thor : review

Man I had high hopes going into this.
Thor on paper should be one of my favourite characters.
Me, I love mythology.
Unfortunately, Walt Simonson's run aside, I have been kind of unlucky when I had sampled individual issues. (I hopped on in the run up to Heroes Reborn when Thor's own title didn't have him in it)
I also tried J Michael Straczynski's first issue and, well, 'twas not for me.
JMS was co-writer on Thor's movie debut, which didn't bode well.
And you know what, the script worked.

Personally I think the movie is strongest in the fantasy sequences. (It is after all what makes Thor distinctive - and Asgard and Jotunheim are gorgeous).
Maybe there might be a bit too much fish-out-of-water in the second quarter.
But overall it works as an introduction for newbies.

Chris Hemsworth is surprisingly good as Thor. Cocky. Angry. Funny.
His romantic lead, Natalie Portman, channels her Garden State performance somewhat which is kinda all that's needed.
But the revelation is Tom Hiddleston as Loki. Yes, he is very reminiscent of Michael Sheen in places but that is no bad thing.

Some sections of the UK press have attacked director Kenneth Branagh for wasting his talents. Sure, it's watered down Shakespeare at times. But there is a real gravitas to the Asgardian sequences.
There are some decidedly cheesy contrivances but, just like the first Iron Man movie, this is much better than it needs to be.

On media and Action Comics (but bear with me)

The caravan has recently returned from an excursion to the Mediterranean island nation of Malta.
There is nothing worse than someone gassing on about how they had a lovely time on their hols (but we did and you should try to go if you like sun, sea and churches but with a relaxed non-pushy attitude to tourists)
So to the point.
The main island of Malta is a small place. It takes 45 minutes to cross by car. The airport takes up a fair bit of it.
And the media there makes the country's size quite clear. Page 3 of Wednesday's Times of Malta (the national paper) had a piece on a postbox being damaged but the mail inside being ok. It also named and shamed an employee who had just been convicted for what seemed to be minor fraud against his employer.
Yeah, it's easy to point and laugh at such a parochial media.
But maybe this contributes in some small way to why the place is so safe. If you're a local and you get caught, not only will your friends and family know about it but so will the whole country.

That might seem a bit scary. A bit 1984.
It's symptomatic of being such a tiny country, I guess.
Though it also shows that the media can be a positive influence kind of.

I needed to remind myself of that when seeing the coverage of Action Comics 900.

DC decided to celebrate 900 issues of the comic that Superman first appeared in, which is a great achievement (even if they did slightly cheat by having it weekly for a while in the late 80s).
So in addition to their regular writer Paul Cornell (he who wrote the two stone-cold classic Dr Who stories Father's Day and Human Nature ), they brought in other writers for back-up stories including David S. Goyer (who wrote Nolan's Batman movies as well as the upcoming Superman movie).
Goyer's story appears to feature Supes renouncing his US citizenship saying that he is getting tired of being mistaken as an agent of American foreign policy.
Now, I haven't read this but nor have various other commentators who seem to have created a mini-storm. Here's potential Presidential candidate Mike Huckerbee being asked about it on Fox.
The Weekly Standard also jumped in. Admittedly their writer is clearly a comics fan (I disagree that the only thing interesting about Superman is that he's devoted to America though it's a theory) but as he acknowledges, the media is taking a back-up story far too seriously. There's a lot of angry comments on Comics Alliance's coverage.
DC have now made efforts to clarify that the character is still committed to America.
Which they kind of needed to, given the heat generated.

But it does make me wonder what DC were thinking. In the 90s they released Superman : Red Son, an imaginary story (aren't they all - to quote Alan Moore) in which his rocket landed in the USSR instead. Here in the UK, I remember reading articles implying that this would be the new status quo. (Which was never going to be the case).
So maybe DC should have thought that this would be a THING.
Ach well...