plentyofants

congratulations

Sun, 20 May 2007 18:10:38 GMT

...on yesterday's FA Cup final, not to either of the teams playing (two clubs I dislike played a dull match which was won by the one I dislike slightly less), but to Mark Lawrenson who surpassed even his usual standard of 'argh! teh punnage' in his commentary to produce this gem:

Misplaced Chelsea pass goes miles from where it was intended
Motson: "That's asking a bit much of Robben."
Lawrenson: "It's asking a bit much of Batman, never mind Robben."

I don't know whether that's genius or cause for shooting. Possibly both.

plantations

Thu, 17 May 2007 23:37:41 GMT

Nicholas Carr in today's Guardian technology supplement talks about the increasing concentration of use of the web into a smaller number of 'mega-sites' like Google and Wikipedia. He puts some of this increase down to social sites like Facebook and MySpace, and some of it to the positive feedback effect of Google's search results - more popular sites get linked to more often so rank higher in searches so end up more popular.

Thing is, though, I remember reports like this, what, ten years ago? The web was a lot newer then, but was about becoming established. I remember reading at least one article along the lines of "people spend more time online than a year ago, but a greater proportion of it at a small number of major sites", these being the big portal sites of their day like Yahoo! and Altavista. So, fair enough, it's a sensible enough article, but it's not saying anything unexpected. I'm sure Google's ranking system has provided an important way for this aggregation to increase, but it's something that was going to happen anyway. First few years of the web were stumbling around, seeing what you could find here and there, but soon some places become influential and their importance increased as more people got to know about them. It happens with anything new.

if i must talk about big brother...

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 23:14:26 GMT

All the obvious things have been said, but I'll just point out one of Jade's closing comments in her interview, post-eviction:

"I left that house with no bag of chips on my shoulder"

The Jadest quote ever, surely?

the singing ambassador

Tue, 16 Jan 2007 16:59:19 GMT

More Howard Goodall news... (for some reason). He's been appointed as a new "singing ambassador", apparently.

That's a fine title, isn't it? Brings to mind images of the Ferrero Rocher ambassador converted to West End musical. Defusing international diplomatic crises with a wave of his hand and a lushly orchestrated tune. Lovely.

the squid was lured using a smaller squid

Sat, 23 Dec 2006 00:26:08 GMT

I predict internetsdairy will post about this tomorrow.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/22/usquid122.xml

Poor thing died in the end. (The squid, not internetsdairy.)

a real dead ringer for...

Mon, 11 Dec 2006 17:27:32 GMT

What would happen if Jon Culshaw tried to do an impression of Howard Goodall?

Obviously, the fact that Rory Bremner looks like him too is taken as read.

Right, enough look-alikes.

i'm old progg

Mon, 11 Dec 2006 16:55:26 GMT

Another look-alike. I ran into this the other day: the cover of an album called Dedicato a Frazz by obscure '70s Italian prog band Semiramis. And it bears an uncanny resemblance to The Mighty Boosh's Old Gregg.

Even shares the same aquatic theme. How do Messrs Barratt and Fielding explain that, I wonder (other than "It's meant to be Rick James")?

morrissey: your plastic pal who's fun to be with

Thu, 09 Nov 2006 17:14:49 GMT

I think we should be told.

divs

Wed, 06 Sep 2006 15:34:15 GMT

On last night's Don't Get Me Started programme (7.15pm on five) "What's Wrong with Blasphemy?" the presenter Stewart Lee referred to a group of Christian protestors behind him, outside a Liverpool performance of Jerry Springer: The Opera, and said:

You may consider these people hysterical bigots, or just misguided fools, but they are, nonetheless, divs.

(emphasis mine. It may not be exactly right word for word; I'm writing it from memory)

How old does one have to be to be considered for 'national treasure' status?

doctor, haven't i seen this somewhere before?

Sat, 03 Jun 2006 21:58:10 GMT

So, so, so... tonight's special 6/6/6-themed Doctor Who ('The Impossible Planet', second part next week, unless the world ends on Tuesday). I thought I'd compile a list of its, er, inspirations. (It was really good, by the way - very atmospheric - just that it was quite openly influenced by a whole menu of popular culture sources. In a good way.)

I'll add any more in edits if I indeed get any comments with further suggestions.

The Guardian's TV guide said "Alien plus The Matrix divided by the Exorcist". Alien, I'd go with (or possibly Aliens). I don't see where The Matrix comes in. I suppose, The Exorcist for the satanic connections and demonic possession, though it's hardly the only film that would fit here.

Event Horizon. Obviously, obviously Event Horizon.

One of the old Quatermass films (possibly Quatermass and the Pit for the underground activity).

Anything Cthuluish for those tentacle-mouthed Ood aliens.

Buffy for the whole "The place is on a hellmouth, musn't break the seal keeping the monster in" stuff.

Old episodes of Doctor Who itself, of course; notably Inferno (for the drilling unleashing a terror). Also Kinda/Snakedance (for the controlling tattoos) and The Dalek Invasion of Earth (drilling to the centre of the earth). And probably lots of others, for all I know.

The Book of Revelation, I suppose.

A quick look around the blogs has someone suggesting The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe (for the grandstand view of whole solar systems falling into the black hole), and someone else suggesting the Doom movie (I haven't seen it, so I don't know).

I've a nagging feeling I'm missing loads more obvious ones (basically, every story where drilling awakens an ancient horror. What was that crap film with the dragons?)

Is it my imagination, or was there some Godspeed You! Black Emperor in the incidental music? I expect it wasn't, but it sounded a lot like them.

And, of course, they got the black hole bit wrong. Unless they were really really close, they could be in orbit round a black hole as easily as they could with a star of the same mass in the same place. Of course, it might be throwing out a fair bit of radiation from where all the stuff is falling into it, but you can't have everything, can you? And what about that bit with the planet generating some kind of extra gravity field? How would that help? Gravity is attractive, innit? That's only going to pull you in to the hole. Anyway...

livejournal knows what i like

Fri, 12 May 2006 21:00:19 GMT

I hadn't intended to use this journal, but I upgraded my account to an ad-supported one and what was I presented with when I went to see my journal page? A google advert for pies. Fantastic! (OK, it's because I listed 'pie' in my interests, for other reasons)

One of the results was even advertising pies on eBay. What kind of person would buy their pies on eBay?