Monday 10 November 2008

TV

The Sarah Jane Adventures
2x07 The Mark of the Beserker Part One
Clearly, those kids are next to useless when Sarah Jane goes away. Did you know the only one that's actually 15 is Luke? The other two are both legally able to go out getting drunk and what have you. And do, apparently. (I apologise if this shatters anyone's illusions. Or indeed if "getting drunk" is overstating it.)

Stephen Fry in America
Part 5 True West
Stephen Fry visits a brothel! Now there's something you don't expect to see.

Fiction

Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman, Andy Kubert & Richard Isanove
Part Two

Non-Fiction

Story by Robert McKee
Chapter 12

Articles

Brand brands Sachs row 'meaningless' by Sarah Rollo
(from Digital Spy)
Ooh, controversial headline! I think I'll complain! Etc. However, he does have a point.

Quantum of Solace Rules International Box Office by Devin Zydel
(from CommanderBond.net)
I love a good round of statistics, and here's some good statistics: "on general release in 58 new markets around the world and opened bigger than Casino Royale in every single one of them (13 even managed to double what Royale did). [It] grossed a whopping $106.5 million this weekend in 61 territories, making it the 11th biggest international weekend ever. The film grossed more than triple the combined foreign take for the next four entries on the list... Despite not having opened in the US, Australia, Japan, Mexico and Spain yet, the 10-day cumulative total for Quantum of Solace stands at $160.3 million." Follow the link for loads more.

Review of The Incredible Hulk R1 DVD by James Gray
(from DVD Times)
"The two monsters dutifully tear apart a few apartment blocks before the Abomination keels over and surrenders and everyone goes home happy they’ve had their yearly fill of watching CGI monsters do battle while being simultaneously relieved they’ve left without getting the same headache as Transformers gave them last year."

Top Gear secret code mocks Strictly by Michael Thornton
(from Digital Spy)
It's the in thing these days to complain to the BBC about nothing -- especially if that nothing happens on a controversial show -- so I wonder how many this will manage?

Poem of the Day: A Martian Sends a Postcard Home

by Craig Raine

This 1979 piece is part of a movement (possibly the start of the movement) known as Martian poetry, which you're most likely to have heard of as a way of being taught poetry in school. It's freely available on numerous websites, so I may as well include the full text here.

Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings
and some are treasured for their markings --

they cause the eyes to melt
or the body to shriek without pain.

I have never seen one fly, but
sometimes they perch on the hand.

Mist is when the sky is tired of flight
and rests its soft machine on ground:

then the world is dim and bookish
like engravings under tissue paper.

Rain is when the earth is television.
It has the property of making colours darker.

Model T is a room with the lock inside --
a key is turned to free the world

for movement, so quick there is a film
to watch for anything missed.

But time is tied to the wrist
or kept in a box, ticking with impatience.

In homes, a haunted apparatus sleeps,
that snores when you pick it up.

If the ghost cries, they carry it
to their lips and soothe it to sleep

with sounds. And yet they wake it up
deliberately, by tickling with a finger.

Only the young are allowed to suffer
openly. Adults go to a punishment room

with water but nothing to eat.
They lock the door and suffer the noises

alone. No one is exempt
and everyone's pain has a different smell.

At night when all the colours die,
they hide in pairs

and read about themselves --
in colour, with their eyelids shut.

If you're struggling, I can tell you that "caxtons" are books (quite where that word comes from, or how they could be described as "mechanical birds", I don't know); "Model T" is, of course, the Ford Model T car; the watch and clock are obvious, I think; the "haunted apparatus" is a telephone, which "cries" (rings), is "soothed" (talked into) and "tickled" (dialled); the "punishment room with water" is, I believe, a bathroom; and "read about themselves" are dreams, I presume.

Hardly a detailed analysis I know, but perhaps some useful pointers.