This time the lucky recipient of birthday wishes is medusa!

... tamaranth!

dougs, at whose birthday drinks six years ago, I met someone.

He's on again, this time in The Wrong Door.

From just about everyone:

The instructions:

Take a picture of yourself right now. Don’t change your clothes. Don’t fix your hair. Just take a picture. Post that picture with no editing. (Except maybe to get the image size down to something reasonable. Don’t go posting an eight megapixel image.) Include these instructions.

The result:

( I wouldn't like to meet that on a dark night ... )

I often feel that, as I sit and write about receptions of Greece and Rome in modern sf, that I lack the critical tools I need. I was trained as a historian, and not a terribly theoretical one at that. When I took the Foundation's SF Masterclass in June, part of my motivation was the desire to sharpen my critical faculties (and I'm still quite keen on doing the Masterclass again next year).

I've been borrowing some of ladymoonray's OU Social Science course to give myself a bit more of a grounding in that. I've also been looking at some other courses. One is AA310 Film and Television History In this course, you have to watch, and write essays about: Citizen Kane, Cape Fear (both versions), Titanic (oh well), Stagecoach, The Godfather, Now, Voyager, Rear Window, Jaws, Fargo, Alfie, The Dam Busters, Dracula, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, one out of Dr No, From Russia With Love and Goldfinger, The Marriage of Maria Braun, Rosa Luxembourg, The Night Porter, Cinema Paradiso, Life is Beautiful.  The last two TMAs are a project on a genre of televsion studied in the final Block - and one of those genres is sf.

So I've signed up.  I get an fee waiver as a member of OU staff, and it will be very interesting to go through the educational process from the otherside - it might help me with my own.  But I shall have to remember not to be too badly behaved a student.  

I'm looking forward to this.  It'll be much more fun that the Project Management course I'm struggling through at work at the moment ...

1. The 'Hoodies' sketch at the beginning of this week's Harry and Paul.

2. The Clarkson Island sketch at the end.

3. Humph and the teams reeling off some of their greatest hits.

4. 'Gwen, my bike's got a bell."

5. Tory conference welcome packs.

Linda Smith is on QI. I feel very sad ...

Well, I have to say the opening gag in this week's Harry and Paul is pure genius, though I'm surprised anyone under 40 would get it ...

... to fastfwd and major_clanger, pillars of the sf community both!

Channel hopping, and I catch the 'Springtime for Hitler' sequence from the unnecessary movie of the musical of the movie of The Producers.  And the blond Nazi taking the lead looks a bit familiar.  Where've I seen him before  ...?  Bloody hell, it's Barrowman!

... to drplokta. Might see you in the pub tonight.

... to bugshaw!

Happy birthdays to inulro and ross! And because I'm not convinced that I'll have the Internet back by tomorrow, advanced greetings to to margotmetroland!

... they're doing archaeology again in Ambridge ...

... to sneerpout!

... to that ardent admire of Tiberius Claudius Germanicus whatever, purple_pen!

Needs more Time Lords.

About nine and a half minutes into this week's Now Show John Holmes goes off on a rant about Bonekickers, all of which is entirely correct.

I'll still be watching tonight, of course. We watch because of the absurdity, not in spite of it. But I shan't blog tonight's episode, unless they magnify the madness by a factor of n, where N is a very high number indeed.

Ha! "Unless", he says ...

On the other hand, nothing in Bonekickers is quite so implausible as the notion that Ed and Emma might actually make it work this time round.

... to seph_hazard!

I don't mind it being hot, and I don't mind it raining.

What I do mind is it being bright and sunny first thing, lulling me into putting the washing on the line, only for it immediately to go dull and rainy. Especially when this is not what the BBC weather page says it should be.

I had a splendid time in Edinburgh, with some of my favourite people in the whole world. Thanks to all of you who turned out, sorry I didn't get to talk to all of you.

... to the person who drew this icon, cleanskies!

Attention Edinburghers!

We will be in in Edinburgh over the weekend. We plan on descending on the Auld Hoose on Saturday night from about 7, and would love to see any and all of you there. Apart from that, we're going to wing it (though we are busy on Friday night). If people want to join us on whatever it is we're doing at other times (we'll be around all day Saturday and Sunday), then call me on 07887 930 627.

... to gerisullivan.

"'Ere, Rusty, can we borrow your Total Bollocks Overdrive? It's for this archaeology programme we're doing."

"Yeah, no problem, mate."

ETA: This post was written before the frankly insane 'bras off for the lads' moment.*

* Just in case you were wondering, AFAIK magnetometers are that shape because they are directional - so the only way you'd pick up anyone's underwiring is if you actually point it at a lady's bosom. And I'm pretty sure any member of staff demanding that students remove their underwear would find themselves carpeted very quickly. Okay, so not having the underwiring is authentic. It's still a ridiculous scene in the way it's done.

Happy birthday to despotliz! May the day bring you, well, something ...

Aargh! Have just heard Meryl Streep singing in Mamma Mia. And it's awful! Awful! PAIN!

Well, that was utterly ridiculous from start to finish, but somehow brilliant.

If the Germans nick a goal in the next five minutes, there is no justice - they really do look feeble.

Rusty appears to have found a new setting on the Total Bollocks Overdrive - the setting marked 'Good'.

Well, I'm not sure what ythat was I watched on Saturday night, but it certainly wasn't any version of Doctor Who I recognize.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/13/stemcells.medicalresearch

I particularly 'like' "The reference to the need for a father should be recast as 'the need for supportive parenting and a father or a male role model'. This is not to discriminate against same-sex couples or single parents, but to ensure that the responsibility to a child is discharged." Umm, yes it is discriminating against same-sex couples and single parents. And to pretend otherwise is, well, lying.

Well, nothing much really, I've got most things I need, but if you were to push me I wouldn't say no to a blender!

Okay, so when did Ethan Rayne replace Tony Blair?

I had previously though that Alan Sugar was a bit of a comedy executive, who seemed to be doing all right off a programme that I had no interest in, but which seemed popular amongst many. Generally harmless (though his dealings when he ran Spurs were a bit dodgy).

I now know that he's a reactionary misogynist.

Sugar said that employers "would like to ask, 'are you planning to get married and have any children?' These laws are counterproductive for women, that's the bottom line, you're not allowed to ask, so it's easy - just don't employ them."

So, in order not to do something illegal, employers are forced to do something illegal.

Remember, it's go-ahead red tape haters like this who thought selling mortgages to people who couldn't make the repayments was a good idea.

Happy birthdays to the_lady_lily and tingle!

... to marypcb!

It's very easy to focus on the unpleasant gun-nuttery of his later years, and I've seen the same cold dead fingers joke in two places already.

But anyone's contribution to society needs to be judged as much on their best work as on their worst, and I prefer to remember the man who could, in only his early thirties, command, and I mean command, the screen in a way that will always be beyond most Hollywood performers today. And the man who brought us the only screen Cardinal Richelieu worth talking about.

... hddod and wag_9393!

This morning, I noticed something wrong with the display on our relatively new VCR. The last figure in the digital display for the time wasn't showing properly. It appeared to be broken. Bugger, I thought, how did that happen. I looked more closely, and saw a spidery pattern across the last bit of the display. Cracks in the glass? I looked closer still. And realized that this wasn't a spidery pattern of cracks. It was in fact ... a spider! Somehow a spider had got into the VCR, and had crawled between the digital display and the glass. It's clearly still alive, as it's not there now, though unless it has a way in and out of the VCR, it may not last long. I shall just have to watch myself next time I take a tape out.

A few people are linking to this story. Well, actually, they've been linking to the version of the same story in the Daily Mail, but, in the absence of the story yet being covered by actual newspapers, I prefer the Standard's version, if for no other reason than that the Standard does not have an ironic sidebar of links to misogynistic stories about celebrities.

On the one hand, it's hardly a surprise that a member of the BNP holds moronic, mediaeval and hateful views. On the other hand, the more publicity this gets, the less likely it is that they'll get the 7% of votes they need for Eriksen to get his lardy arse in the London Assembly.

Oh, and in case you were wondering if it's true that the media has distorted his opinions by quoting what he actually said, his blog entry is still easy to find, complete with such sensible observations as "Given that only 6% of rape allegations are upheld by the courts, we can see that 94% of rape allegations are lies." On which logic, one could just as easily say that, given only 5-8% are likely to vote for the BNP, then 92-95% of Londoners would rather they fucked off and never darkened their doors again.

Actually, that last statement seems to me much more likely to be true.

ETA: Not that I want to discredit the crusading journalistic credentials of the Evening Standard, but it does appear that Eriksen's collection with 'Sir John Bull' was exposed a bit ago.

Happy birthday to ianmcdonald. Sorry we didn't talk for any length of time at Orbital.

David Cameron: "I don't always agree with him but I respect the fact that he's absolutely his own man."

Translation: "When he makes a complete fool of himself, it's nothing to do with me."