Torchwood

Excuse me while I haul my huge critical appendage out into the fresh air, but last nights' episode of Torchwood was actually pretty good. Looking back, as much as I have wanted it to be good, it's been laboured, illogical and downright silly in places, when it should have been sharp, clever and fun. Never mind all the 'adult theme' bollocks, which is just an excuse for lesbian snogs every other episode it has constantly struggled to find a voice for itself. It can't be like Dr Who 'cos Dr Who is for kids, but it can't ignore it's source because it's been conspicuously referencing it's parent show every week.

Last night it seemed to find it's feet. The setup was good, the guest actor was great, the story was interesting and apart from a slightly shit ending featuring the line "There are some things we aren't meant to know", and a blink and you'll miss it demise for the baddie, it rolled along nicely. I even found myself warming to the characters a bit more, apart from the thin mouth pathologist who is still a wanker, and the one who had the cyberman girlfriend, who needs to get out more.

The bloke in charge needs to spend more time on a script supervisor and careful editing and less time on night time shots of Cardiff from helicopters and it might actually be good stuff.

Health

Salad
Originally uploaded by Smallbrainfield.

In a bid for health, I've started exercising again. Amazingly, I also made a salad for lunch. Here it is. I fucked it up slightly by adding feta, which is basically salt in cheese form, and the olives were in brine, so more salt there. Still, it's the thought that counts. Then I went round to my mums and had a massive turkey dinner and a big bowl of dessert, with lots of wine. Did I mention I went to a 40th birthday party last night and ate scotch eggs, vol au vents and ham? Lovely, lovely food, finished off with a slice of Black Forest Gateaux, made the traditional way, i.e, having never been anywhere near a black forest, cherries or a frenchman. Or a German.

Saddest image of the evening had to be either 40 year old men dancing to the Smiths ( they had brought gladioli and were waving them about), or some other 40 year old blokes dancing to The Cults' She Sells Sanctuary. I expect 20 years ago they were all sniffing at each other down the indie disco, then getting beaten up by casuals on the way home.

Still, you can't fault a bloke for trying, can you?

Salt

Salt
Originally uploaded by Smallbrainfield.

Just as I find out I have high blood pressure, my mother in law buys me some gourmet salt. If she wasn't a nice mother in law, I'd be suspicious.
She also bought the jars on the left, which are very nice but I have yet to find a use for them.

Heres to the kings of the nineteen nineties.

Pop Will Eat Itself were great. Not just great they were ace. But their music has suffered by being entirely relevant to the time it was written. Thus, "We dig Optimus Prime and not Galvatron" is rendered doubly amusing by the fact Transformers have, in the intervening years since PWEI roamed the land, been and gone and come back again. I saw an anniversary Optimus in the shops the other week.
Lots of the lyrics creak; "Big Mac, fries to go" would, if uttered at any present day McDonalds, be met with, alongside a vacant stare, "Do you mean a Big Mac meal?" Even Def Con One doesn't have the same ring anymore. "This is the Day" remains one of my favourite albums despite this. Proto Brum hip-hop filled with samples you'd get hung drawn and quartered for stealing these days, it's fast and funny, especially the one about James Brown.
If I could be arsed, I'd try and find a PWEI site (bound to be one). I know one of them formed Bentley Rhythm Ace and Clint Mansell does soundtracks. His name is in the credits for CSI:NY and he did the music for Darren Aronofskys' Pi.

I wonder what the shouty one with the megaphone is doing these days?

Edit http://www.pweination.co.uk/pwei/index.php

Blimey, they did a reunion tour. How did I miss that? Next you'll be telling me Rush have a new album out...

High Blood Pressure

It seems I have high blood pressure. After one person I know had a heart attack and another had a nasty scare, I thought it prudent to check out a pain I had in my chest. The pain turned out to be muscular. As a bonus, however, I now find out I have high blood pressure. I'm going to have some blood tests next week and another BP test to check, but the doc was pretty much writing me a prescription there and then.

The problem is, the slightest thing winds me up. When I'm driving, cooking, at work, or even when I'm sitting very, very still, I can feel my blood begin to boil at the slightest provocation. I need to calm down, but how can I calm down when there's looneys trying to perform terrist acts that threaten the entire western world? How can I calm down when every five minutes a politician is telling me to be vigilant because there's looneys trying to perform terrist acts that threaten the entire western world and take away my liberties while at the same time said politician presses for legislation to take those selfsame liberties away anyway? Meanwhile I'm happily burning fossil fuels and worrying about the environment while eating fish and chips from non-recycled paper.

Even sending a fax sticks in my craw. I always ask if I can e-mail documents, but nine times out of ten they want a fax. I print a piece of paper, fax the paper, the fax machine prints a receipt on a piece of paper while simultaneously some distance away another piece of paper is being printed.

You can see my problem.

And it doesn't end there. I like cheese, which is a no no, and have mayonnaise on my sandwiches every day. It's low fat mayonnaise, but the cheese isn't. And I work in an office, so I sit down most of the day. Gah.

What this all boils down to is that I hate being reminded of my own mortality. I want to live until I'm at least 500, like they do in science fiction, then be uploaded into a computer. Ideally I would live for 5000 to 6000 years, which would give me enough time to sort out my comic collection in the attic and finish decorating the hall and stairs.

It's winding me up now, thinking about it, so I'm going to stop before something bursts. Anybody got any relaxation tapes?

Spirit of the blitz

Blackout
Originally uploaded by Smallbrainfield.

We'd just sat down to tea when the power went off. The wind has been high all day, really gusting, so I suppose it should have been no suprise. The only sound was the spin cycle on the dryer as it wound down. The kids got scared, but luckily we have losts of candles around. I walked to the closet and got a lighter I knew was in my pocket from Guy Fawkes night and lit some candles. The power came on briefly a few times before finally going off and staying off.
We finished tea; the dark allowing us to sneak some Ben & Jerrys past the kids, checked on my neighbour and lit more candles. The street was dead black. The kids were hyper, a mixture of excitement and fear. I called my parents to see if they were okay. Then the lights came back on for half an hour, before failing again for another half an hour.
They're back on now, but it was sobering just how much we rely on electricity. The kids were pissed because they couldn't watch TV, but equally, we couldn't open the washing machine, and most importantly, have a brew (I suppose I could have boiled a pan of water, but that's not the point.)
So excuse me if I stroke my computer like a lost kitten returned. Also, my neighbour brought us a big glass of port and rum each, so I'm a bit tiddled, too.

I was going to make some point about energy, ecology and stuff, but I'm off to switch all the lights on.

Taking weird photos

A little pie
Originally uploaded by Smallbrainfield.

This morning, a full, oo, thirty minutes before I was due to set off for work, my son announces he needs some pictures of fruit to take to school for a project. Luckily, I remembered I had some pictures I had taken with the macro lens of fruit, so I hastened to Flickr to get them.

While they printed and I searched for a few other pictures of fruit, it occurred to me that at that moment all the people who had ever been called weird by their spouse or various other family members and friends for taking close up pictures of Cantaloupe melons were suddenly vindicated.

With this in mind, I feel the need to be prepared. If they ever do a project on snack size pies, I'm sorted.

Borked

Blogger doesn't want my posts by email, for some reason. The last two I've copied from their original emails, so if they appear twice, it means either the email was slower than chiselling them into a granite slab might have been, or the blog thing that lets me send posts by email isn't working right.

So if you're suddenly seeing double, it's not you, it's me.

(Loving your) Love Action

I've been listening to the Human League and Duran Duran on the way to and from work today and I have to say it's been a treat. Duran Duran seem to get overlooked a bit because they looked a bit like they were enjoying it all a bit too much. There is, however, a little corner of Great Britain that will forever be riding a yacht in the Caribbean staffed entirely by supermodels and wearing a linen suit and canvas shoes. What they sang about was mostly wibble, but they used synthesizers and seemed to be having a rollicker, and that is good enough for me.
I probably wouldn't have danced at the school disco, for risk of being called a 'poof', but I secretly liked them all the same. 'Is there something I should know', 'New moon on Monday' and 'The Reflex' are all personal faves.
These days, the Durannies have reformed and it's interesting to see how they've all changed. The once ladies fave, John Taylor, looks haggard, a bit too much of the high life with his ex-pat chums in L.A., methinks. Simon Le Bon has filled out, a bit like William Shatner. Oddly, Nick Rhodes, the one that wore the most make-up and everyone thought was a gay, looks great. A good advert for men moisturising, if ever there was one.

The Human League were a different kettle of fish. They all looked dour, possibly a byproduct of coming from Sheffield, and there were girls. The girls arrived later. The first incarnation was a bit weirder and did 'Being Boiled'. My first image of them is on local news, where local journo and man about town, Tony Wilson, had a spot where he introduced new talent to people getting in from work and kids getting ready for bed. The sight of the giant Phil Oakey with his half-long fringe looming over the cameraman is an image that sticks with me to this day. (I lived in Sheffield when I was a filthy student and had the privilege of spotting Mr Oakey striding through town on several occasions. Never had the courage to say hello, though.)
'Love Action' was great. Still is. I can remember the school disco and watching the girls do their 'bored girls out of Human League' dancing around their handbags. The other songs I can remember are 'White Lines' which ironically for this post was later covered by Duran Duran, and 'Doctor Doctor' by The Thompson Twins, who also had synths and were also ace, though I wouldn't have admitted that at the time, either.
The League also gave us the awesome, 'Don't you want me?', but I like 'Love Action' better 'cos of the synth bit that sounds like a cat meowing. It sounded great belting out of the speakers in my car on the way to work. I suppose I looked a bit of a tool bellowing along to 'Don't You Want Me' but I'm too old to care about stuff like that.

I'm not going to launch into how music of my era sounds better than music today. I like the Automatic for the same reasons I like the Human League. I just think it still sounds good today, like Hendrix still sounds good. Perhaps the sound of my dad saying 'this isn't proper music' still ring in my ears after all this time. Then again, he likes the blues, which makes me want to eat Brillo pads.

Mr Magic Tea-Fingers returns..

Finally, it's done. Most of the time was spent working out a vaguely humorous ending. The only trouble with something like Mr Magic Tea-Fingers is, the cruder it gets, the harder it is to come up with something funny that isn't just a retread of what I've done before. I found this out with a previous cartoon I did, about John Deacon out of Queen, where someone pointed out one strip was the same joke I'd done six months previously. I hadn't even noticed. It takes a while to draw as well, and this one isn't half as detailed as some of the earlier ones. I looked back for the previous Mr Magic Tea-Fingers tales and the last one was done almost a year ago. God knows how professional cartoonists get on doing a strip every day..

Warning: Click at your own risk. Contains very, very crude cartoon depictions of bodily functions and puerile humour of the sort normally reserved for toilet walls.

Click here for Mr Magic Tea-Fingers

Well, it made me laugh anyway.

Hornby Buildings 1933

Hornby Buildings 1933
Originally uploaded by Smallbrainfield.

This is a detail of a row of shops, not far from where I live. It's due to be demolished soon, to make way for a big exciting new shopping development, i.e. more shops.
How many more bloody shops do we need? I've seen the artists' impression of what will replace Hornby Buildings and it's another faceless shell. It's not brave or new architecture, which I wouldn't mind, but it's just another shell to pack to the brim with useless toss of one form or another, to sell to people who can't really afford it, who can then go home and sit and stare at the walls until they rot from the brain outwards.
I imagine that Hornby Buildings was derivative. In it's time it was probably unremarkable. After all, it's just a block of shops with offices above. I still think it's a shame it's going, along with a church, a row of ancient shops and an old cinema, to make way for something sickeningly planned and polished and ultimately, very, very bland.

Stuff that goes bang

Barring the odd riot, British men only get one, possibly two nights of the year in which we get to make things go bang and start fires. Good old Guy Fawkes. If it hadn't been for him trying to blow up parliament, we'd have had to find another excuse., which would probably mean more riots.

This weekend, I got to go to two bonfire parties, which meant double the destruction. All thanks to having kids. The first was a big affair, with a bonfire, drunken teenagers and lots of ace bonfire night food. Black peas, potato pie, beer. All served up around a blazing fire, which excitingly, might at any moment ignite the surrounding trees and become an inferno.

The fireworks were mostly small garden fireworks, then someone got bored, nipped to the late shop and bought some imported mortars, big, breezeblock sized boxes packed with sequenced charges. There was also a screamer, which does exactly what it says on the packet. My ears are still ringing.

Last night was more of the same, a smaller party, good hot winter food and lots of fireworks. I managed to burn my thumb on a fuse, just badly enough to scare the kids into not approaching fireworks, ever.

Letting fireworks off is ace, dangerous and generally the most fun you can have whilst getting your fingers burnt. Your kids look on you with total awe and appreciation, at least until they're about 13 anyway, and you get to play with fire and things that spit flame and go bang. Having a bonfire is the icing on the cake, as you also get to burn stuff, poke burning things with a stick, smell of burnt stuff for about a week after and spend a few days coughing due to smoke inhalation. Perhaps it's a man thing, my wife and daughter stayed indoors for most of it, while me and my son jumped up and down like idiots, cheering after every big bang. All because a bloke couldn't blow something up 500 years ago. It's kind of rubbing his nose in it a bit, after all this time.

 

Anyway, boom! I can't wait for New Year's Eve.

Depressing news

The news is depressing at the moment. Coupled with the cold weather finally arriving with a vengance, it's all very depressing. We're going to run out of fish, forever, inside of 40 years if we carry on fishing at current rates. Aside from the sign makers rubbing their hands at the thought of all those Fish and Chip shops that are going to have to be renamed, it's miserable news for the rest of us, never mind the fish.

Then there's the army. Equipment doesn't work or there isn't enough to go round and we're running out of soldiers. This is of course to be expected, as a major part of being a soldier is the bit about possibly being shot by other soldiers (the baddies, not your own, hopefully). But it's not just the ones most likely to get shot we're short of. Engineers and medical staff are thin on the ground. A lot of it seems to be down to the fact that people don't want to get shot or fight other people, both major considerations when joining the army to say the least.

 

Then there's the climate, which if we don't do something soon is going to be knackered, for real this time. No amount of popstars in the rainforest can save us, even if we set fire to them.

 

Then there's the muslims. Iraq is still a mess, Afghanistan isn't much better. A group of gunmen have taken refuge in a mosque in Gaza. Meanwhile the Israeli army are busy knocking it down to get at them. Great. Aside from the fact that these are probably not nice men, them being gunmen and all, knocking down a mosque is probably not going to help matters, is it?

 

As if all this wasn't bad enough, the BBC last night showed their new drama about terrorism, "The State Within". It's all whizzing camera work and televsion static jump-cuts. Basically, it's about what happens when an aircraft gets blown up over Washington. There's the British ambassador (Jason Isaacs) who's obviously the good guy, Cagney out of Cagney and Lacey is the US secretary of defence, who is like Madelene Allbright crossed with Sylvester Stallone.

 

There's an MI6 agent having a gay affair with one of the US defense secretarys' staff, a decorated ex-British soldier on death row and some mad British squaddies wandering round West Virginia shooting things. Then the governor of Virginia starts rounding up British muslms and locking them up and a looney bloke telling the human rights woman (forgot to mention her) trying to save the ex-British soldier on death row that he's innocent. It's bloody confusing, but my money is on the gays taking over using the looney British squaddies and muslim extremists as cover.

 

All it made me think is that I'm sick of watching drama about terrorists, whether they be on a mission from God, or inadvertant pawns in a bid for world domination by power crazed homosexuals. It's all very exciting and the production values are wonderful, and I'm sure I'll end up watching next week, but I think I'm getting terrorism fatigue. We need drama that doesn't mirror the climate of fear we're all getting so used to these days.

 

I'd like a gripping drama about people not blowing each other up, not eating too much fish, then deciding to join the army in peacetime and bringing their own weapons, perhaps set in Sweden. They could be an international team of psychics, including a gay jewish/muslim couple completely uninterested in ruling the world, that specialise in psychically inducing fish to have sex from their peaceful fjord military island, codenamed Smorgasbord. I haven't thought of a title yet, but any suggestions are welcome.

Mr Magic Tea-Fingers

Mr Magic Tea-Fingers
Originally uploaded by Smallbrainfield.

Mr Magic Tea-Fingers is a character I created, who has the ability to enhance weak tea with his special tea-grease. Unfortunately for Mr Magic Tea-Fingers and the people he helps, magic tea-grease can only be found up Mr Magic Tea-Fingers' bottom.

I lost all the source files in the great terrible hard drive disaster of 2006, which ended with me reintalling Windows, thinking all my hard work was on the other hard drive. It wasn't. I lost about 3 or 4 years worth of images, a lot of good stuff (and lots more rubbish). The only survivors were the low res versions I had stored on various internet sites.

Mr Magic Tea-Fingers is the first resurrection. Someone mentioned his similarity to Guy Fawkes in this pic, which is entrirely coincidental, but appropriate seeing as it's nearly bonfire night.

Now, all I need is a story...