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...

Doctor Who - Day of the Moon

That was phenomenally good.
Which is all I can say without

<< spoilers.... >>

Where to begin?
I'm really pleased that there's lots of questions remaining. Hopefully it won't make this season impenetrable but instead will make it water-cooler TV and give it the desired ratings boost.

So we still don't know who it is in the astronaut suit. Methinks it's the little girl.
As for her, that regeneration was such a wonderful surprise. We're being led to assume she's Amy's daughter. That may be the case though I can't help but wonder if it's actually a very young Amy - we have been told several times last season that she's special. (I doubt it's River as there was no hint of a regeneration when she died.) Also, let's not forget the Doctor has a cloned daughter.

I was half-expecting Rory to leave tonight. That relationship's on, ahem, shaky grounds.

The actual episode itself was solid enough. There's wonderful imagery. Sure, the tally marks don't make an awful amount of sense. Though it's all very taut and The Silence are incredibly sinister aliens (I trust they'll return). Actually watching the show tonight is a bit like watching Italian Saturday night TV - it's great fun but you don't have much of a clue what's happening.
A year down the line, this episode (this season even) will depend on whether the final answers are strong enough to support all of this.
But I'll say this for the new season : it's ballsy and brave - which is always a good thing.

Doctor Who - The Impossible Astronaut

As season-openers go, this was rather good.
Witty and exciting with more than a touch of menace (and The Silence are wonderful nightmare fuel)
Yes, thus far, it seems to be a collection of set pieces rather than a plot.
Maybe it'll all become clear with the second part.
Moffat is implying that not everything will be concluded by episode's end. So maybe this season's one big arc - it's certainly a possibility.

In a remarkable turnabout, River feels less tired. She's far flirtier than I recall her being last season. Moffat's made her fun again.

The beginning is excellent - from a fun precredits to a stunning attention-grabbing moment. If you haven't seen the episode yet, you need to watch it from the very beginning.

And there's much to discuss so here be

<< Spoilers sweetie >>

Minor things first. I actually enjoyed the fact that Rory and Amy are settled and living together away from the Tardis. Yes it might stretch credibility a bit too much if this becomes the status quo, with them every now and again meeting up with the Doctor, but it's a nice touch.
I'm not sure where we're going with the pregnancy storyline. Are we setting things up for a tragedy? If so, it'll be very dark even for this era of the show.

Given the rumoured death in the Tardis family, I'm a bit disappointed if this is it.
As it's clearly a cop-out. Methinks as I speculated a while back that we'll be led to think this was it before someone else gets killed off in the next 5 episodes.
I wonder if the future Doctor will still be dead and instead we'll see the next few episodes with the sword of Damocles hanging over the Doctor.
My only concern is that we don't have a convoluted get-out.
River and Amy have made it clear that they can't save the Doctor as that'll create a paradox. Us readers of the 90s novels may wonder if we're seeing the introduction of the Faction Paradox into the TV series. (Certainly there's echoes of the cliffhanger to book one of Interference)

Also, who is in the astronaut suit at the start? River perhaps? We know she is supposed to kill the Doctor at some point.

All told, it's a solid start but there's a lot of balls being juggled.....