I informed a friend recently that I was going to watch Gigli. His reaction was to laugh in my face. He also said that if I had seen it before – yes, I have – there should be no reason on God’s earth why I should watch it again.

The reason I’m watching it again is simple. It’s a terrible film. And terrible films and I go together like dogs returning to their own vomit. But Gigli also has something else, something you will practically never see in any other bad film – something so shockingly rare that for it alone this film deserves its place in the hall of fame.

In almost every way, Gigli was made to fail. First of all, it’s a romantic comedy. A romantic comedy featuring hitmen. The first time we see the ‘hero’ he’s threatening to shove someone into a tumble dryer and let him bake to death. Already we know it’s going to be very difficult to make us care about these protagonists. The best way forward would be for the film to realise this and turn it into a very black comedy. In any case, comedy is filled with funny characters we aren’t supposed to like (Check out almost any character from The League of Gentlemen, Richie and Eddie from Bottom, Sir Humphrey Appleby from Yes, Minister - all of them unpleasant in very different ways).

But Gigli stubbornly refuses to notice this. We are supposed to find a pair of multiple killers likeable. In a script that doesn’t contain any jokes worthwhile anyway.

The second mistake had everyone groaning when the film was released – Ben Affleck, who plays the ‘hero’ (yes, I refuse to grant him the title), can apparently cure lesbians. No, Gigli is not meant to be an exercise in surrealism. Over the course of the film, he will introduce the ‘heroine’ (played by Jennifer Lopez) to the joys of heterosexuality.

Sigh.

The third mistake is also obvious. We’re supposed to believe that when you put Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez together on screen, instant sexual chemistry explodes around them. They were dating at the time, but based on what we see on screen you’d never have guessed. There’s more sincere and credible sexual tension between Riffraff and Magenta in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Or, indeed, between Riffraff and Frank N Furter.

Now, what’s the best way to endure this? First, a stiff drink, possibly accompanied with anti-depressants. Second, my trustworthy blog! If I have to suffer, we all suffer!

( This film sucks the life out of you like a vampire )

Things got rather busier than I thought. Look, I'm halfway through a review for *shudder* Gigli, so I'm in rather more pain than you are.

Here, watch something good. First up - well, I know that everyone else is blogging about it, but I want to leap on the bandwagon because it's perfect. Behold the wonder of homeopathy in A&E!



And here's Michell and Webb again, in a sketch that marries humour and the unsettling brilliantly.

It's easy to laugh at the Americans. After all, us lot in Britain don't have the Discovery Institute sitting on our doorsteps. We don't have school boards anxious to pump ID propaganda into our science classrooms (I hope). But, alas, we are not immune.

Let me introduce you to Noah's Ark Zoo Farm in Bristol (http://www.noahsarkzoofarm.co.uk/). They have tigers and tapirs, and are also involved in educational visits for schoolchildren. A lofty aim, but I'd advise the teachers to hesitate before booking a trip.

Look along the top bar - there's Visitor Information, Education, Conservation... Creation Research?

Creation Research (http://www.noahsarkzoofarm.co.uk/pages/research/research.php)? Oh dear, this doesn't look good.

Hunting around the place, I find the following -

Indeed, when it comes to Earth history, there are only two major issues where we would beg to differ from the majority scientific view:

Only two. Phew, I was worried there. What are these areas?

genealogy (since the evidence of the fossil record is one of many separate family trees, not a unified 'tree of life') and chronology (since direct evidences of time needed to lay down the rock layers do not support billion-year timescales).

Ah.

Palaeontologists have struggled for more than a century to find transitional fossils to confirm the predictions of Darwinism. But, with some exceptions, these have not been found... Radioisotope dating has been used to show that the fossil record unfolded over billions of years. We suggest that while the method is not itself invalid, the dates produced by it are not supported by the primary evidence of the rocks and fossils themselves. (from http://www.noahsarkzoofarm.co.uk/pages/research/03-creation-biology/creation-biology.php)

No, or few transitional - that's just stupid!

But it gets worse with the second part, after the ellipsis. Yes, I'm afraid the alarm bells of reason and rationality are not wrong.

The evidence which we can actually see and touch suggests that the planet’s age should be measured in tens of thousands of years rather than thousands of millions... The conflicting lines of evidence may be reconciled if radioactive decay rates were much faster in the past. Faster rates of decay may have been a consequence of a faster speed of light, for which there is independent evidence, including the distance-related (and hence time-related) redshift of stars. (from http://www.noahsarkzoofarm.co.uk/pages/research/06-radioisotopes/radioisotopes.php)

The Earth is only tens of thousands years old because in the past the speed of light was faster. How can anyone take such a thing seriously?

There has to be a non-scientific agenda here, and it's obvious what it is.

The alternative to Darwinism is, strangely, difficult for some to accept: that we have a Creator who still sustains and directs his world and universe. He is not like the vengeful or apathetic gods of some religions, but the loving, gracious, concerned God who has revealed himself to the whole world in the world's best-selling book, the Bible. In the words of C. S. Lewis "Is He safe? Oh no. But He is good".

Some people find the idea of life being created by God difficult to swallow. In the words of Richard Dawkins; the notion that a God "chose to create it in such a way that it looked as though he was not there" does not allow him the freedom to believe. This is where faith enters and sadly where Dawkins, amongst others, lack the understanding of its importance: God has chosen to remain hidden, for us to exercise faith; without which we cannot please him. Hebrews 11:6

The last admission is particularly telling. It means that the good folk at Noah's Ark Zoo Farm are fully prepared to allow articles of faith, unsupported by evidence, into science.

Science and theology do not mix. It doesn't matter if you believe or not, Goddidit has never been a scientific explanation. Still want to take your kids there?

The Farm is endorsed by a government agency to promote tourism in the UK, VisitBritain. In other words, we are telling foreign visitors that we will happily pander to irrational, outdated, untestable hypotheses that threaten biology, medical science, geology, astronomy and a whole raft of other important disciplines whilst producing nothing in return.

If you're feeling as nauseated as I am, you may be able to do something about that. Please visit http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/NoCreationistZoo/ to tell the government what you think.

Since when did the Discovery Institute become Fox News?

Say hello to the Discovery Institute, the think tank - if you can call it thinking - that believes that evolution didn't happen. Instead, they believe everything was created by God an Intelligent Designer.

Usually in science, when you put forth a position you back it up with evidence. But the Discovery Institute has no scientific evidence. So, what to do when people call you out on your drivel?

Recently one of the most vocal members of the DI, Casey Luskin, had an interview on Fox News about evolution in school textbooks. The DI's line is now apparently 'teach the controversy', despite the fact that there is no serious controversy. One might as well say there's a controversy between chemistry and alchemy. Fox being Fox, they didn't bother interviewing any scientists and Luskin went unchallenged.

The beauty of the internet, though, is that it's very democratic. If you push buckets of stupid into public view, someone's calling to call you on it. DonExodus, a Christian biologist, analysed Luskin's verbiage and basically pounded its head in with a fire extinguisher.



Note that the footage comes from Fox News. Note also that DonExodus is using the footage under 'fair use' regulations. You know what's coming, don't you?

Yup.



Rather than replying to the arguments, or ignoring a mere YouTube user, the Discovery Institute threw its toys out of the pram and has tried to hit DonExodus with a DCMA accusation - basically, misuse of copyright.

Despite the fact that 'fair use' rules apply.

Despite the fact that the Discovery Institute don't even own the footage.

Who'd have thought that the DI, which wants so desperately to be respected by society, would descend to such petty, childish spite? Well, to be fair creationists are prone to this sort of thing; Kent Hovind also tried it in the past.

(He's in jail now, of course, for tax evasion. Apparently he hasn't read far enough into the Bible to reach the 'Render unto Caesar' bit.)

And actually, the Discovery Institute itself is no novice. Recently it also fired accusations against another YouTube user who was making parodies of them. Again, the videos taken down contain no footage from the DI. The following video is from YouTube user Dprjones, who has kindly uploaded the videos again and is publicly challenging the DI to take action against him.



This is not an issue about evolution. This is not an issue about religion. This is an issue about free speech and censorship.

Whether the DI actually believes in intelligent design or not is irrevelant. This is bullying.

So, what can you do?

1) If you have a YouTube account, please mirror DonExodus's take-down of Luskin.

2) If you don't, or even if you do, spread the message far and wide.

3) DonExodus is also asking for legal advice. I'm sure he's a very nice chap. Then again, he simply has to be nicer than the toads at the Discovery Institute.

What on Earth do you think they 'discover', by the way? It ain't ethics.

Still very busy, so not much time to watch films and so on - apologies. However, I just had to share this with the world.

The Pet Shop Boys have just released a new single, Did You See Me Coming? It's not the song I would have chosen for a single, but neither is it a disaster. On the other hand, it contains a B-side that is absolutely phenomenal, both in its musical style and its lyrics. Indeed, lyrically it's one of the best things they've ever done. The song is called After the Event, and God bless YouTube -



When was the last time you heard a song which reacted to blue skies with such foreboding?

( Lyrics under the cut )

Orson Scott Card does not like gay marriage.

Orson Scott Card does not like cohabitation without marriage.

Orson Scott Card does not like children being told that homosexuality is no better nor worse than heterosexuality.

Orson Scott Card believes that should the US government ever agree to gay marriage, then 'people who are actually creating successful marriages have no choice but to change governments, by whatever means is made possible or necessary.'

Wait. Does that mean what I think it does? Yup -

'How long before married people answer the dictators thus: Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn.'

(I'm assuming here that the children won't turn out to be, you know, gay.)

But why should he care? Well, 'biological imperatives trump laws.' I hope that clears that one up.

EDIT - whoops, I forgot the link. http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/05/orson_scott_card_goes_off_the.php?utm_source=mostactive&utm_medium=link

I'm a couple of days late with this, but I think I can use this space to protest. Like everyone else, I watched appalled as the Child Abuse Commission released its devastating 2,600 page report into abuses at Catholic schools. It collected information from more than 250 church-run institutions.

With a report that long, it was unlikely to be good news. What we actually got, however, exceeded the expectations of all but the most cynical. What follows are some quotes from the Executive Summary.

Sexual abuse was 'endemic'. 'Physical and emotional abuse and neglect were features of the institutions.' Inspection by the State was 'fundamentally flawed and incapable of being effective.'

Well, how bad exactly could this be?

The legislation and the Department of Education guidelines were unambiguous in the restrictions placed on corporal punishment. These limits however, were not observed in any of the schools investigated. Complaints of physical abuse were frequent enough for the Department of Education to be aware that they referred to more than acts of sporadic violence by some individuals. The Department knew that violence and beatings were endemic within the system itself. (Conclusion 9)

A climate of fear, created by pervasive, excessive and arbitrary punishment, permeated most of the institutions and all those run for boys. Children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from. (Conclusion 11)

It is impossible to determine the full extent of sexual abuse committed in boys’ schools. The schools investigated revealed a substantial level of sexual abuse of boys in care that extended over a range from improper touching and fondling to rape with violence. Perpetrators of abuse were able to operate undetected for long periods at the core of institutions. (Conclusion 19)

The recidivist nature of sexual abuse was known to religious authorities... When confronted with evidence of sexual abuse, the response of the religious authorities was to transfer the offender to another location where, in many instances, he was free to abuse again. Permitting an offender to obtain dispensation from vows often enabled him to continue working as a lay teacher. (Conclusions 20-21)

The Congregational authorities did not listen to or believe people who complained of sexual abuse that occurred in the past, notwithstanding the extensive evidence that emerged from Garda investigations, criminal convictions and witness accounts. (Conclusion 25)

Children were frequently hungry and food was inadequate, inedible and badly prepared in many schools. (Conclusion 32)

Witnessing abuse of co-residents, including seeing other children being beaten or hearing their cries, witnessing the humiliation of siblings and others and being forced to participate in beatings, had a powerful and distressing impact. (Conclusion 41)

For me, reading through this list, one of the saddest elements comes from Conclusion 7, which stated that some victims did have 'some positive memories: small gestures of kindness were vividly recalled. What were these positive memories?

Often the act of kindness recalled in such a positive light arose from the simple fact that the staff member had not given a beating when one was expected.

What can one say about that? What must it be like to have a life where you are grateful that someone isn't hitting you?

The public have been concentrating on the sexual abuse more than anything. What's horrifying is not just the fact that young children were raped - and there's a phrase I thought I'd never have to write - it's this: the authorities knew.

THE AUTHORITIES KNEW. THEY KNEW AND THEY DID NOTHING.

Oh, wait, no, I got it wrong. They did do something - they moved the offender somewhere else so he could start all over again. They covered it up. They didn't give a damn about the destroyed lives left in the paedophile's wake, all they were concerned about was saving their own. To the very last - there will be no prosecutions.

I can't even begin to imagine what the survivors must be feeling. Yes, they were told, you were right. Your teachers and guardians were committing crime after crime after crime against victim after victim after victim, and the Catholic leadership let it go on for years without any form of interference. But we can't do anything about it now.

So, what will the Catholics do now? Well, Vincent Nichols became Archbishop of Westminster on Thursday, so he was ideally placed to do the right thing and set the tone for a new era. This was sorely needed, as his predecessor, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, once responded to a paedophile priest by, er, not telling the police and instead moving him to a new district. So, then, what did Nichols say, as Head of the Catholic Church in Britain?

"It's very distressing and very disturbing. And my heart goes out today, first of all to those people who will find that their stories are now told in public.

"Second, I think of those in religious orders and some of the clergy in Dublin who have to face these facts from their past, which instinctively and quite naturally they'd rather not look at.

"That takes courage. And also we shouldn't forget that this account today will also overshadow all of the good that they also did."

Hang on, run that past me one more time.

"That takes courage. And also we shouldn't forget that this account today will also overshadow all of the good that they also did."

What the fuck?!

And then the Dipstick Duo, Nichols and Murphy-O'Connor, get together at his inauguration to say that -

a lack of faith [is] “the greatest of evils” and [blame] atheism for war and destruction, implying that it was a greater evil even than sin itself.

Apparently Murphy-O'Connor was the real fire-eater, which is what we might expect given his other views. Now you might have thought that anally raping young boys was a greater crime than agreeing with David Hume or Bertrand Russell, but not a word was said on the subject. This isn't so remarkable, as inaugurations aren't meant to be filled with doom and gloom, but stones and glass cathedrals do spring to mind. Especially since, as I've said above, Murphy-O'Connor is hardly a blameless character himself.

If I were a Catholic, I would be deeply ashamed. Ashamed that my religion contained such a recent history of abuse and violence, ashamed that the perpetrators would never be brought to justice, ashamed that leaders like Murphy-O'Connor have never heard the tale about beams in the eye.

Ashamed, also, that they continue to state that they are the superior moral guides for society. This isn't about god, it's about common, simple ethics that they and their helpers in the State failed to live up to.

You can see the whole report at http://www.childabusecommission.ie/. Nichols jams both feet down his throat at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/20/catholic-clergy-courageous-nichols, and Murphy-O'Connor thinks that Daniel Dennett poses a greater threat to society than systematic child abuse and long-standing cover-ups at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6334837.ece. Incidentally, http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0522/1224247111378.html contains the nauseating tale of exactly why there won't be any prosecutions.

My life has not been the greatest recently, and I don't expect it to improve much for the next few weeks. (It's like I'm living in a Pet Shop Boys song, it's that bad.) So it's nice to come back home, open up my email and find something to make me smile.

It's simple enough. What people have been doing worldwide is taking photographs of themselves and others holding hands. The only condition is that it must be same-sex holding hands.

It doesn't matter if you're gay or straight, or if you love the person you're holding hands with. All that's needed is to show that little bit of affection in public.

http://www.adayinhand.com/

(Yes, I can be very much a romantic sap. Now, please excuse me. I need to spend some time laughing at hungry orphans crowded outside the gates of my mansion.)

The TARDIS is hit by an ocean liner, apparently the Titanic. The Doctor discovers that it is not the legendary ‘unsinkable’ ship; it is in fact a spaceship made up to look like an ocean liner. Bored, staggeringly wealthy people are having a themed holiday, and Max Capricorn Industries is offering them the opportunity to celebrate a strange little festival called ‘Christmas’, which is a favourite of the primitives on the planet Earth. The ship is orbiting Earth and as a bonus the guests have the chance to teleport to the centre of London and see for themselves what such an unspoilt environment looks like.

The Doctor decides to have some fun as well, and makes friends with the waitress Astrid and a couple who won the vacation in a competition. If there’s anything amiss, it’s only that nobody’s really bothered to study Earth. The name ‘Titanic’ was chosen as the name of the most famous ship on Earth, but nobody bothered to find out why it’s famous. (What’s more, the resident Earth ‘expert’, Mr Cooper, is clearly nothing of the sort) Also, the servant robots known as the Host, which have been made up to look like angels, aren’t very well constructed. They keep developing glitches.

On the bridge, the Captain allows his crew to leave for a celebratory tot of rum. He would have been left alone, but a young midshipman insists on staying. Regulations state that there must be at least two crew members on the bridge at any one time. The midshipman is therefore the first person to find out that something is going seriously wrong, and when he tries to stop the Captain from piloting the ship into the path of flaming meteors, he is shot in the stomach.

Hacking into the ship’s computer systems, the Doctor is the second person to realise what’s going on, but he is unable to do anything in time. The meteors tear through the ship, leaving only a fraction of the crew and tourists alive. The TARDIS is thrown into space; in such a case it is programmed to lock onto the nearest centre of gravity, and it promptly falls to Earth. The Doctor is left with a mere handful of survivors that he must protect, as the engines are at risk of failing. If that happens, the ship will fall into the Earth’s atmosphere, and the resulting crash will wipe out all life on the planet.

Fortunately the midshipman is still alive, although in considerable pain, and the Doctor is able to use the ship’s communication system to keep in touch with him. The Doctor decides to head up there with his group, although there are two large problems. First, the ship is now a death trap, and reaching the bridge will be near impossible. Second, the Host are killing off every survivor. The meteor collision wasn’t just an act of madness, it was premeditated…

Alright, so you know about my love-hate relationship with Russell Davies. I will say this for the man, though – he is not afraid of brutality, and the mere fact it’s Christmas isn’t going to stop him. Voyage of the Damned is effectively a bloodbath, generated for the most venal of reasons; it’s an act of revenge against people who aren’t even on the ship and part of a ‘retirement plan’. Before long the Doctor’s group are the only survivors on the ship along with the midshipman, and the death rate amongst them is high. Oddly enough, none of them is killed by the Host. Instead they commit suicide to save others or die just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

(For all this, I found the most pitiful character to be the one person guaranteed to last the longest – the midshipman. He has isolated himself so the Host can’t attack, yet he is so terribly alone, so young and inexperienced, and with the crushing responsibility of keeping the engines going. All the while he has to cope with his bullet wound; every movement provokes a fresh wave of pain.)

The fellow survivors are quite a collection. First and foremost is Astrid, the surrogate companion. She’s played by Kylie Minogue, and while I’m aware that, er, there is considerable criticism of her performance, I don’t find it to be that bad. It’s certainly not great, but it’s nowhere near enough to sink the episode. The main flaw with Astrid is the script, as she asks whether she can travel with the Doctor and he says yes. That means, of course, that poor Astrid has just been given a death sentence, and nobody is surprised by her self-sacrifice at the climax.

There’s a welcome return to Doctor Who for Clive Swift, who plays the elderly Earth ‘expert’ Mr Cooper. Swift appeared in the Colin Baker episode Revelation of the Daleks as one of the most vain, mean-minded and sleazy characters to ever appear on the show. (His treatment of a woman who loved him was exceptionally cruel psychologically, and fittingly it led to his death) Cooper is much more sympathetic, a man who has wasted his life and who has lied to get a job travelling around the universe, to do something worthwhile in his remaining years. Swift plays the role magnificently, to the extent that you can’t really blame him for his fraud.

(Other people you may recognise are Geoffrey Palmer as the Captain and Russell Tovey as the midshipman. Tovey played Rudge in The History Boys and I believe gained some cult celebrity from the BBC3 horror-drama Being Human.)

The ‘competition’ couple are less well-drawn, but they clearly love each other – something that will have ramifications later in the episode – and they aren’t as stupid as the more snobbish tourists believe, being experts in robotics. They also give an interesting fact about their home planet of Stow, from which the Titanic departed. 5,000 credits on Stow is considered by them to be a fortune, yet later on the Doctor reveals indirectly that this is roughly £500. At times it seems that everyone is desperate to get away from Stow for one reason or another, though it’s disappointing that this isn’t developed further. It doesn't sound like a very pleasant place.

One of the snobbish tourists, alas, is amongst the survivors. To tell the truth, he’s a bit of a waste of space and only serves two functions. The first is to act like a selfish coward and be generally unpleasant. The second function is a spoiler so I won’t reveal it here, but it is thematically obvious when you watch the programme.

The final character of the group is the most obviously alien – he comes up to waist height and his head looks like a red chestnut. Not long after the disaster strikes the ship he reveals to Astrid his secret, that he’s a cyborg. Once he was terribly injured and it was the only way to survive, but he’s very ashamed of it. We don’t know all the details, but Astrid tells him that things are getting better, that they’re even allowing cyborgs to marry now… it’s impossible not to draw an inference from this, especially since Russell Davies is himself openly gay. (I have no idea whether he sees himself as a spiky-headed dwarf with staggering sunburn, though) I can’t tell how far you can push this, though, due to the climatic scene. Again, I won’t say too much, other than that the gays are still a pretty unhappy lot here.

The overall feel of the episode, of course, is that of a disaster film. This means we’re here for the action and the deaths, rather than the characters. The journey doesn’t actually take that long, but Davies is good at making us think it does. Death can come at any time, no matter how unexpected, and generally it’s not always easy to work out who’ll get out alive. (Sorry, but Astrid’s fate is a dead giveaway, if you’ll forgive the pun). Moments of quiet once things get going are few and far between and I found it rather exciting. Once more I found myself physically bouncing up and down at some points, and I must be an utter embarrassment to watch Doctor Who with.

Although Voyage is light years better than the last Christmas special, in which Catherine Tate bellowed at the Doctor for an hour, it has its flaws. The first comes as no surprise at all; it’s the incidental music. The composer is Murray Gold, who has been providing the music for every episode of the new run, and generally speaking he ranges from average to awful. He has a tendency to be a one-man glurge factory, confusing emotion with overwhelming sentimentality and tension with over-blown melodrama. This is in full force in the episode, at times to such an extent that I think he wanted his name in the credits above David Tennant.

And Davies can’t help himself either. He gives the Queen a cameo, believe it or not. Climatic scenes are done in slow motion. Also, I really wish someone would tell him that although the Doctor might be called ‘the lonely god’ by some, that does not actually make him one. There is a perfect storm combining the worst of Davies with the worst of Gold exactly at the worst possible moment, and there is no other option for the audience than to suffer through it and then forget it as soon as possible afterwards.

Aside from that warning, though, I enjoyed this adventure quite a lot. Next week we’ll find out whether my good mood can tolerate the Catherine Tate blowtorch as we start season thirty.

Today’s lesson, boys and girls, is that children’s cartoons should not be childish cartoons. No matter how much goodwill your main characters cart around with them.

Challenge of the Superfriends comes from the 1970’s, the era which also gave us disco, which should be considered a warning. The Superfriends are actually the Justice League of America – in other words, a goodly selection of DC superheros. The head honcho is none other than Superman, but we also have Wonder Woman, Batman and Robin, the Flash and others. (Including Hawkman, whose super power is that he can fly. Amongst this crowd, big deal)

The Justice League is never actually called the Justice League here. No, they are always and forever called the Superfriends. I don’t think they could have given themselves a lamer title, but hold that thought.

Heroes require villains, and so we have the Legion of Doom. Which, for some reason, likes hiding literally in a swamp. It’s headed by Lex Luthor, who at least merits serious respect (The fact that a mere human can struggle for so long against Superman is extraordinary). The Legion is filled with insane powerful beings, a virtual platoon of super-geniuses, and a guy who owns a boat.

But this is a cartoon series of children. Who cares? Well, I’ve seen things like The Incredibles. Unlike the creators of this mess, I’ve seen cartoons with good plots, credible dialogue, ingenious animation and well-done voice acting. In contrast, the motto of Challenge of the Superfriends is ‘We don’t care.’

For example, they don’t care that the plots are insane. In the very first episode, the Legion of Doom uses a satellite to turn every man on Earth into a Bizzaro clone – imagine a cross between Superman and Kryten from Red Dwarf - and to bring them all the money on Earth. Since only thirteen people on Earth will now have any money, it effectively becomes worthless.

In another episode, Toyman (whose special power is that he’s really irritating) builds an artificial planet in the middle of a black hole. Not just near a black hole, in the centre of a black hole. Three of the Superfriends land on it. Yes, they survive falling into a black hole.

I say again, it’s a BLACK HOLE!

And I haven’t yet said anything about the Legion’s plan to trap the Superfriends inside Alice in Wonderland. When they create an army of unstoppable zombies it’s positively conventional.

The Legion is in desperate need of good corporate governance, because their plans are poorly thought-out with questionable objectives. An evil genius would want to take over the world, but taking over the world in a thousand years time, when it’s little more than a barren rock inhabited by mutants, is not such an illustrious goal. Neither has the Legion yet realised that turning yourself into a giant will not necessarily stop every army in Europe (honestly, when Toyman conquers Britain with a giant clockwork tank, I was so embarrassed for my nation). As for Africa, I doubt that a gorilla army (no projectile weapons, no transportation) would conquer even that under-funded continent.

Of course, if the plot does whatever the writers wish, the characters must all be morons. In one of my favourite episodes, Luthor creates a sun flare that accidentally ends up destroying all human life on Earth. Good going, Luthor. And the only reason why the Superfriends stop it is… well, actually they don’t. A group of aliens do it for them. Yes, that’s right. The only reason why supervillain incompetence fails to kill everyone is because a bunch of aliens do the Superfriends’ work for them. How inspiring.

Don’t think that the Superfriends do any better. The Legion of Doom tries out the ‘we’re good guys now’ routine. They promise to turn over a new leaf and start stopping crime and catching criminals. The Superfriends fall for it and as a consequence an entire alien civilisation, that was begging the Superfriends for help, gets destroyed. All praise to you, Superman!

You would have thought that, when you have a dozen superheros fighting a dozen supervillains, some deaths would result. I wouldn’t expect any of them to die – that would kill the DC cashcow – but there would be violence and collateral damage. The Legion of Doom would at least succeed in killing someone. Or injuring someone. Or, for God’s sake, giving someone a paper cut.

But no.

I’ve seen more violence committed against Noddy.

Oh, they have fights. If you can call them that. At the end of each and every episode there’s about thirty seconds of the two groups playing tag; once you’re touched lightly on the back by Batman, even if you have super-strength and can crack his head open like an egg in less than a second, you have to give in. That’s the rule.

This ‘no violence’ policy is strongly adhered to, even to the point where the massed armies of the world refuse to attack psychopaths. And this, of all things, is why they’re called the Superfriends; because children must be taught the value of friendship and that violence is wrong. Yes, I know that the bad guys are supposed to do ‘wrong things’ and they try to kill people and rob banks and the like, but you mustn’t show them hitting anyone. You can’t even allow them to use weapons that would actually kill anyone. The one exception to this is an episode in which the Legion of Doom thinks it’s killed the Superfriends, but it hasn’t really. It would have been much more interesting if it had.

The characters suck. I don’t often use the word ‘suck’, but here it expresses my contempt for these morons wonderfully. In fact the doubtful word is ‘characters’ as nobody exhibits a personality of any kind. The good guys are good, the bad guys are bad and that’s it. The only person to make any impression is Toyman, because he’s so completely annoying.

If I had to express a preference, it would be for the bad guys, because they are at least doing something. A typical episode goes like this – the Legion of Doom come up with an Evil Plan and give a good old maniacal laugh. One of them, Sinestro, even has a thin moustache to twirl. The plan often includes making the Superfriends look like Supernitwits, which is not particularly difficult. Afterwards the Superfriends only leap into action once the Legion has made its move.

This means that when the Legion isn’t doing anything, the Superfriends sit around watching television and eating nachos, while Superman uses his x-ray vision to stare at Wonder Woman’s chest. The thought of being proactive and getting off their backsides to catch the Legion before the Legion commits a crime doesn’t occur to them.

So the Legion gets the upper hand for most of the episode. But then they get overambitious or put the Superfriends in an easily escapable death trap, and the Superfriends win. The Superfriends then let the Legion escape for no other reason than laziness.

Still, we shouldn’t be too harsh. Clearly the Superfriends are not the sharpest knives in the kitchen. Whatever happens, no matter how obvious it is, they all feel compelled to narrate for themselves what’s happening. Imagine that the Riddler is robbing a jewellery shop, and Batman runs into him.

BATMAN: Great heavens! It’s the Riddler!
(He sees that the Riddler is at a jewellery shop)
BATMAN: He’s at a jewellery shop!
(The Riddler smashes the front store window)
BATMAN: He’s smashed the window!
(The burglar alarm goes off)
BATMAN: That’s the sound of the alarm!

The sad thing is that I’m not exaggerating. You start wondering if the Superfriends’ headquarters, the Hall of Justice, is really a care home. What’s more, the vocal acting matches their imbecility exactly. Stilted and one-note from beginning to end, it displays as much variation as the animation. I’m very fond of Apache Chief, who e-nun-ci-ates each and ev-ery syll-a-ble.

Hilariously, the characters all appear to treat each other as equals when it comes to their superpowers. The Scarecrow, who here is just a guy made of straw, is afforded as much respect as the super-genius android Brainiac. Toyman, whose special ability is that he gets on my nerves whenever he opens his mouth, is seen as a dangerous threat. A veritable platoon of hangers-on and wannabes continually parade up and down their respective headquarters, as if Superman couldn’t kill them faster than they could blink.

Which means that when Brainiac and Gorilla Grodd (a genius in his own right) go on missions, they have to suffer the Riddler, of all people, to come along with them. The Riddler’s superpower is basically to tell the good guys how to win, which makes his continued presence in the Legion of Doom all the more puzzling. Meanwhile, Superman has a public parade thrown in his honour, but has to endure Hawkman tagging along with him. For Doctor Who fans, remember when the Doctor was knighted by Queen Victoria? Imagine that Peri was with him instead of Rose. It’s rather like that.

And, finally, the animation really is no better. Yes, this was the age of cheap, cheap labour. The overriding rule, at all times was that only the bare minimum of characters on screen should ever move, and as little as possible. I’ve mentioned above the lacklustre fights, but the animation adds an extra-special touch; imagine that the combatants are on the verge of falling asleep and you’re pretty near it. Facial expressions change as often as total eclipses take place. Characters move as stiffly as Cybermen. It’s enough to make grown men weep.

But the fun doesn’t stop there, oh no. It really shouldn’t be that hard to steer clear of continuity mistakes, but the animators trample over every rule going. In one scene Superman’s hair goes blond. Characters appear in two places at once. Characters are shown to fly when they’ve never previously been able to. Black Manta’s helmet is so flat he could only fit into it if Gorilla Grodd had sat on his head. The concept of visual scale is flung down and danced upon.

It’s kind of like Claudio Fragasso had drawn it, actually. And that sentence alone should tell you whether you’ll enjoy this series or not. I had a whale of time.

At least I did when the Toyman bloody shut up.

Thanks to the miracle of YouTube, let me show you a little of the horror...



Oh, just in case you were wondering – surprisingly, the Joker does not put in an appearance. I’d like to think it’s because he has his pride, and my respect for him has consequently gone up.

Well, that's going to be my last film review for a while. I will very shortly start more professional examinations - for the next ten weeks, more or less. They're pretty time-intensive, and watching and reviewing films isn't something I can guarantee regularly.

But I have got something else to do in the meantime. The 30th season of Doctor Who is sitting by my computer, and has been for the last six weeks. I've only seen the Christmas special (Voyage of the Damned) so far, and it's time to get stuck in. The only question is how much I can stomach of a complete season with Catherine Tate...

It’s time for me to take a third look at Lucio Fulci before he became the Godfather of Gore, and for the third time discover that only crediting him for his horror films does the director a disservice. If only he didn’t spoil it with the ending…

Dr George Dumurrier runs the Dumurrier clinic in San Francisco. It is not doing terribly well financially, and George has an annoying habit of feeding the press sensationalist lies about the place to bolster its reputation. Aside from that, George’s home life isn’t any better. He’s married to Susan, a cold woman and opponent in an even colder war. It’s really no wonder that George is having an affair with Jane, a photographer.

Susan suffers severely from asthma, and dies from an attack while George is off enjoying himself with Jane. It’s not secret that the marriage was in difficulty, and aside from the shock George isn’t that affected by the death. There is one puzzling aspect, though. A short time before the fatal attack, Susan took out a very large insurance policy, which in the event of her death would pay George two million dollars, more than enough to pay off the clinic’s debts. Susan hated the clinic as much as she hated George, and this sudden act of kindness was wildly out of character for her.

I can’t say it bothers George that much, though. Not when there’s something much more worrying going on. While dining with Jane George gets an anonymous phone call that eventually leads him to a stripper bar. A few minutes after he arrives, the main act appears on stage. Her name is Monica Weston, and she appears in motorcycle clothing, complete with helmet. The moment the helmet comes off, George’s world will be turned upside down. Because though the eye and hair colour is different, Monica is the spitting image of Susan. And it won’t be too long before that insurance policy creates some very great problems for George.

Is One on Top of the Other a giallo? I’m not sure we can class it as such. It was released six months before The Bird with the Crystal Plumage came along and wrote the definitive rule book on the subject, though there were gialli before then. But I’ve always had the view that gialli should have more than one death. One on Top of the Other crystallises entirely around Susan’s death and Monica Weston. True, the killer is planning another murder, but this one is rather unusual.

One on Top of the Other is a very cold film. The central characters don’t appear to have any emotionally warm feelings towards each other, and one must wonder sometimes if they’re capable of having them. George doesn’t love his wife, but to be honest I’m not sure if anyone could. When we first meet her she looks pale and drawn, pacing endlessly in black around a white room that looks clinically sterile. The décor matches her personality; George is hardly the only guilty one in the relationship.

On the other hand, you’d expect George to be a bit more amiable around others. But this seems not to be the case – though he gets a lot more sex with Jane, neither of them show much emotion about their affair. Jane, in particular, will maintain an unfazed, neutral façade throughout the film, but it’s difficult to tell how much of this is really an act. (In an early scene, Jane leaves town by train for good to end the affair. When she arrives at her destination, George is waiting there for her. Romantic, you might think, but shortly afterwards we find out that this has happened on several occasions and they treat it as a game)

Monica may look like Susan, but their personalities are very different. Susan was withdrawn and hostile, seeing everyone around her as an enemy. Monica is outgoing and clearly looking for a good time no matter where she is. That said, neither of them seems to care about anyone else. Any affection Monica gives over the course of the film is strictly on a commercial basis, leading to a disconcerting scene where George tracks her down and has sex with her. Having sex with your dead wife’s facsimile is unnerving enough, but throughout the scene George has flashbacks to Susan’s corpse, laid out on her bed with cotton wool stuffed up her nostrils. It becomes even worse when the camera assumes George’s viewpoint, and edges closer and closer to Monica’s cynically smiling face… For a moment I thought Fulci was directing a Cronenberg script. I wouldn’t have been surprised if George bumped into the Mantle twins. What’s more, by the end of the film we’ll have found out just how creepy this little sex session really is.

(There aren’t many stylistic flourishes in the film, but Fulci is rather fond of showing people’s reflections, often in windows. Even the reflections are internally hollow here)

Isn’t there anyone here who’s emotionally healthy? Well, the only person who displays any warmth towards anyone is a pathetic little man in unrequited love with Monica, to whom Fulci has given the unflattering name Benjamin Wormser. Monica has no qualms about ridiculing him and he hasn’t enough self-respect to fight back. Emotional, yes, healthy, no.

Another important theme running throughout the film is just who exactly has the power here. Argento would push this into more complex situations in films like Bird and Profondo Rosso (where, for once in a giallo, the heroine saves the hero from a burning building and not vice versa), but Fulci uses this theme to great effect. As the film starts, George looks too confident for his own good, especially since his creditors are about to rip him to pieces and Susan refuses to be babied by the nurses he drags to their house. Susan’s insurance policy pays off the debts, and the true protagonist in his affair seems to be Jane. Game or no game, she’s the one getting on the train, while George states that he can’t divorce Susan. The stripper bar scene is particularly interesting; during Monica’s act, both Monica and Jane are staring at him. Monica is in control of every situation in which she finds herself. Jane is confused, as she recognises Monica’s resemblance to Susan, but only George looks entirely lost. The climax to this is reached when George finds himself in prison. His liberty – his freedom of action – has now been literally taken away, but it’s hard to say that he had any real freedom of action in the first place.

And at the end, for the first and only time in the film, the killer will finally lose control of events themself.

As a mystery, the film is unfortunately frustrating. Happily, the killer’s modus operandi is a reasonably good one. The killer was taking quite a few risks, but given the circumstances it’s not too unbelievable that they could get away with it. What I also found wonderful is that George’s emotional distance from everyone is directly relevant here – the killer’s plan depended on George being absolutely blind to everything going on around him.

Unfortunately, problems begin to arise with the structure of the climax. Once George is accused of murder, you can work out part of what’s happening. (The first confirmation of what’s been happening aptly enough for a Fulci film involves eyes!) On the other hand, you are unlikely to work it all out because Fulci isn’t kind enough to give us all the clues we need to do so. This happens in other films, and I wouldn’t normally be so hard on it, but George and Jane wander through the film not really finding out anything until the killer kindly spells it out for George! (The killer is gloating, and thinks that George will shortly die on death row, but they’re an idiot for not realising that George will do everything to attain exonerating evidence, now he knows what he’s looking for)

Fulci then goes on to botch it further. The killer does meet an unpleasant end, but not because of George or Jane. If George had simply sat at home and done nothing after Susan’s death, the film would still have ended the same way. The protagonist ultimately does nothing to effect the outcome of events, which leaves the viewer feeling unfulfilled. I’m pushed to say that, yes, it does make logical sense. Since George has spent the entire film at the mercy of other people, why should we expect it to change now? But logic is sometimes a very unwelcome guest in fiction and it’s a disappointment.

It doesn’t help that Fulci is determined to make the ending as uncinematic as he can make it, for precisely the same reason – he’s following through on the story’s themes. Does George Durmurrier die in the gas chamber or not? We see him in there, and then – and then we’re told what happens next by a news reporter after the event. I can kind of see why Fulci has done this; the film is filled with impersonal, emotionally distant characters, and it reflects Fulci’s treatment of another important scene towards the beginning of the film. Why not be emotionally distant here as well?

If I’m right, and Fulci was playing on that, it’s an example of how distant theory can be from practice. It feels flat and unsatisfying – thank heaven that Fulci at least showed the killer getting it in the neck (torso, actually).

It’s a little ironic that I complained about The House with Laughing Windows only becoming good towards the end, and this week I’m complaining about One on Top of the Other for the exact opposite problem! Nevertheless, I still can’t help liking it, which is more than can be said for House. You see, Fulci can make a good film without gore!

No, let’s ignore Murder Rock…

Ah, the fun I've had mocking Left Behind. But this, my friends, is an equal opportunities blog. What would happen, do you think, if LaHaye and Jenkins were atheists?

Well, the result might look like this.

Over the years I’ve become increasingly sceptical about any claims that could be considered ‘supernatural’. Creationism and intelligent design are bugbears of mine, and my religious stance has hardened into atheism, which in my case boils down to ‘There’s no good reason for believing there is a god, so I don’t’. Controversial, perhaps, given that bus adverts saying ‘There is probably no god’ can still give people the vapours. On the other hand, I hope I am in larger company when I say that crystal healing has never been shown to work, dowsing is a farce, the astrology columns in newspapers are bunkum and homeopathy’s track record when put to the test is abysmal.

Larger company, though not large enough. Too many people believe too many things with too little evidence. I have no doubt I’m one of them, but I try very hard not to be and I hope I can accept criticism and correction when I’m wrong. There are various reasons why I think belief in nonsense is damaging, but I’m going to concentrate on one particular type of rubbish. Some delusions are more harmful than others, and there are a select few that get my blood boiling. One of them is ‘psychics’ who claim they can contact the dead.

Such people can get a lot of air-time. In Britain we’ve had people like Derek Acorah and Gordon Smith (‘the Psychic Barber’, no less, lauded by the august publication the Daily Mail as ‘Britain’s most accurate medium’). In America there’s John Edward and Sylvia Browne, who has assured her anxious fans that their beloved pets go to heaven as well. These and many, many others assure those who have lost loved ones that the dead survive in an afterlife. Some psychics even like helping police investigations, offering their talents to tell relatives if their missing daughter is dead or alive, or where the body could be found, or what the killer is like.

This is, of course, complete and utter crap. What’s more, it’s seriously depressing crap.

( It's easy to talk to the dead; the hard part is getting them to answer back )

Gov Jim Douglas thinks that the economic situation is too much of an issue to be wasting time on equal rights. He also thinks that granting gay people rights in Vermont is irrelevant because they won't have rights in other states or on a federal level.

Because, you know, gay Vermont citizens actually live in different states.

Anyway, he recently vetoed a gay marriage bill. And, Deity-of-your-choice bless 'em, the state's legislature went on and passed it anyway. The Senate coasted through with a vote of 25-3, and the House followed by the narrowest of margins - 100-49, the minimum the bill could pass by.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-gay-marriage-vermont,0,2518471.story

Congratulations to the Vermont legislature.

Things are getting interesting here. One by one, each state is having to face up to gay marriage and say, definitely, yes or no. A gay person's marriage will be recognised in some cities and towns but not in others - and he won't even have to leave the country. You have to wonder how long this bizarre situation will last for.

Stefano, a painter, is called in to a small Italian village to restore a wall fresco in the local church. The priest is a bit ambivalent about it; certainly the fresco was painted by a great artist, Buono Legnani, but it depicts a semi-nude man getting stabbed to death. It’s rather graphic and not the sort of thing one wants in a church. Besides which, Legnani was a madman who got off on painting the dying. The priest’s not the only one who’s unhappy about it, either. Back at his hotel, Stefano gets an anonymous phone call warning him not to work on the painting.

But Stefano has a job to do. What’s more, the person who got him the job is an old friend, Antonio, and it would hardly do to let him down. When they meet in the village Antonio seems a little uneasy, and he tells Stefano that he’s uncovered the most fantastic story about the painting. Before he can tell Stefano, however, Antonio falls to his death from a high window. Stefano arrives just in time to watch it happen, and he also sees the shadow of someone in the room from which Antonio falls. Obviously the anonymous caller was serious in his or her demands.

What’s so special about the fresco? Why is Legnani’s entire artistic output so morbid? And in a village filled with eccentrics, from the dim-witted church attendant to the alcoholic chauffeur, how can Stefano find out who killed his friend?

The opening to Pupi Avati’s film, whilst powerful, is a little misleading. As the credits play we are shown in sepia slow motion footage of a semi nude man being repeatedly stabbed by two people; it’s impossible to see their faces or even make out their gender. As this goes on – and on – and on, we hear an intense and excited man raving about colours, purity and someone dying. So in the first couple of minutes we have violent death, blood, and a lunatic getting turned on by the thought of death. Andrea Bianchi would probably have approved.

Of course, it’s done roughly a thousand times better than Bianchi could ever have done (Bianchi gave the world Strip Nude for Your Killer, and I still don’t know what we ever did to deserve that one). However, it does seem to promise what the rest of the film generally doesn’t deliver. Violent death is mainly kept off screen. Avati isn’t afraid of showing us blood, but will only do so when he absolutely has to. And when it comes to the sex scenes – oh boy. The only way to make them less revealing would be to make the characters wear burkas.

So, Consider Yourselves Warned. And quite a few people don’t really like House for this reason. My own reaction was one of slight surprise; House is usually counted as a giallo and they normally aren’t this ‘quiet’. But I can take it or leave it. Buckets of blood are no guarantee of quality, nor are they necessarily an omen that the film will be bad (Two examples of great but gory films are Cronenberg’s The Fly and Argento’s Tenebrae) The fault with House does not lie with its approach to giallo conventions. It’s more that there is a stylistic vacuum plaguing the film that Avati is never quite able to overcome.

Slow moving films, as I keep saying, are fine, as are films that completely ignore the gore. Nobody complains that Nosferatu isn’t coated in blood, and I vividly remember the sucker punch delivered by Takashi Miike’s Audition, another film that sails quietly along until its final third, at which point absolute chaos is unleashed. The House with Laughing Windows wants to go down this route, but simply isn’t up to it.

Why? Well, consider the protagonist. Stefano is a painter who doesn’t mind having sex with people he’s recently met. This isn’t portrayed as something unusual, or something to be sneered at, it’s just something he does. The trouble is that there’s not much more to him. In true giallo style he’s an outsider in the community, and on his own in unfamiliar surroundings. He also grows obsessive over his investigation into Legnani and Antonio’s death, ignoring the heroine’s hysterical complaints. (She complains in one scene that his promises that they’ll leave the village together are worthless; the best we can say for Stefano is that he doesn’t mean them to be) However it’s very difficult to engage with Stefano as a character. A lot of time he wanders around the place in blank puzzlement, which is realistic but not very entertaining. Francesca, the heroine, is little better, as she spends the entire film mainly staying in Stefano’s lodgings and not doing very much. If we contrast this with Audition we can see how much Miike got right – his hero is a widower who wants to find love, he buys into a mad scheme to get it, and the object of his affection is mysterious yet extremely sympathetic (at first). We can empathise with the characters, meaning that when the first cracks start appearing we really start to worry.

So if we aren’t going to get anywhere with the characters, what about the plot? Surely this should generate some uneasy suspense. The answer is yes and no. Antonio’s death is declared a suicide (he recently had a nervous breakdown, and nobody’s going to believe he was cured). This means that no police investigation was done, and everyone promptly forgets about it. The half-wit in the church is clearly mad, and towards the end of the film becomes somewhat more than violent, but you’re more likely to find him annoying than creepy. And then Avati on several occasions does something really weird – giving us a set up without a payoff. For example, Francesca thinks that someone is watching her at the dead of night; yet within three seconds we find out that nothing happened. One night there’s someone in the church with Stefano, yet again this is passed over without a single comment. The worst example comes when Stefano is having a drink with Coppola, the drunk chauffeur, at his lodgings. Stefano leaves to check on the sleeping Francesca, and when he comes back to the sitting room Coppola has gone. Eerie music plays on the soundtrack as Stefano makes a cursory search for him and then gives up. Aha! thinks the audience. Something nasty has happened. But in the very next scene Stefano is happily chatting to Coppola as if nothing happened. He doesn’t even ask Coppola where he went.

If as if Avati wants to have his cake and eat it. He wants us on the edge of our seats, but can’t think of a good reason to get us there. The tension throughout the film should be steadily building, but it’s like trying to light a series of damp matches.

Was this intentional? Was Avati trying to subvert expectations? I doubt it, considering that things do pick up considerably in the final third of the film. Finally people get threatened, and Stefano discovers to his mounting horror just how deeply he’s become involved in everything. The killers are appropriately vicious, and entirely in keeping with the sort of lunatic Legnani was. When we find out the motive, and what’s really been going on, it’s horrifying. Stefano is placed in real danger and it’s at this point that we find out just how friendless he really is in the village. The film ends at a disturbing and ambiguous moment, ensuring that we go away with the climax playing constantly in our heads. We also get to see the house with laughing windows, which proves to be more than a metaphor; you kind of hope that nobody actually lived there, as the inhabitants would be freaked out on a daily basis.

And yet… and yet the climax of the film doesn’t really work either. After a story with nymphomaniac teachers, dwarf mayors and bedridden old ladies in dilapidated houses, after a story with insane killers who actually cackle at their victims, it’s all a bit clichéd. Without giving too much away, Legnani had a bit of an unusual family and was, let’s say, rather too loving with some members. As soon as Stefano works out that these relatives are still alive, I was able to identify them. One of the killers is obvious to anyone with a pulse, and another is obvious to any giallo enthusiast (His profession is a dead giveaway that he’s involved somehow).

Avati also falls prey to gaping plot holes. The killers are operating at the centre of a conspiracy amongst the wider population in the village. However, we have no reason why the villagers are going along with it. They are getting nothing out of it. The killers do not wield so much power that calling the police is pointless, and their motive is pretty much a family reason, so it doesn’t have a wider impact on the society around them. Funnily enough, we meet the inverse of this plot hole when the mayor finally does call the police – just as we don’t know why he goes along with the conspiracy, neither do we know why he’s finally rebelling!

I think the best way to sum up the film is to say that it’s an intelligent and well-crafted movie that thinks it’s more intelligent and well-crafted than is really the case. You’ll find flashes of inspiration and a final third that somewhat atones for the mistakes in the rest of the film, but that’s not enough to save it.

Now, then. Time to find a copy of Audition, I think…

The Iowa Supreme Court has ruled that the ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/03/AR2009040300376.html?referrer=facebook

Naturally the not-as-enlightened members of the public are making noises about a referendum. Let's hope that this time around sanity prevails.

The city of Hakodate would like you to visit. Sited in Northern Japan, Hakodate was one of the first ports open to the Western world. It is known for its hot springs and the beautiful Mount Hakodate, which boasts spectacular panoramas.

According to the Hakodate Tourist Board, its major landmarks also turn into giant robots to fight off alien squid invaders. The following is an actual promotional video -



Apparently the tagline translates as 'Visit while you can'. Being British, the thing that stunned me wasn't so much the implication that the city will shortly be incinerated as the music they play at the very end.

My friend Graham has asked me to pick a musical artist and answer the following questions using only their song titles. Now I know, you know, he knows and Gordon Brown probably knows that I can only do this with one band unless I want to use artists like Puccini and Benjamin Britten, but at least I have the occasion as an excuse. You’re allowed to give one or two answers to each question.

You’re also supposed to tag 25 people to do this as well, but I’ll throw it wide open.

Pick Your Artist:
-- Pet Shop Boys

Are you male or female:
-- Music for Boys

Describe yourself:
-- It’s Alright

How do you feel about yourself?
-- I Get Along

Describe where you currently live:
-- Here
-- Home and Dry

If you could go anywhere, where would you go:
-- All Over the World
-- Closer to Heaven

Your best friend is:
-- The Resurrectionist

Your favorite color is:
-- Blue on Blue

You know (that):
-- I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind of Thing
-- Nothing Has Been Proved

What's the weather like:
-- The Calm Before the Storm

If your life were a TV show, what would it be called?
-- Left to My Own Devices

What is life to you:
-- More Than a Dream
-- Hit and Miss

What is the best advice you have to give:
-- Happiness is an Option

If you could change your name, what would it be:
-- Don Juan

Your favorite food is:
-- It Must Be Obvious

Your last words will be:
-- Se a Vide e (That’s the Way Life is)

Your worst day was:
-- Too Many People

Your Favourite time is:
-- In the Night

Describe the nearest family member:
-- Bright Young Things

How do you feel about politics?
-- You Know Where You Went Wrong
-- Men and Maggots

Name something all your exes have in common:
-- In Private

Your garden is like:
-- Was That What It Was?

You drive:
-- It Couldn’t Happen Here

They will remember you as:
-- Some Speculation
-- Boy Strange

Your pet is:
-- I Want a Dog