Friday 27 March 2009

TV

Moving Wallpaper
2x05 Episode 5
Best episode yet, by a sizable margin. Next week is the finale, but there's no Renaissance paired with it. Presumably that'll be the week after, then...
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

The Wire
Prequel 1985 Young Omar
With BBC Two showing The Wire from the very beginning (starting next Monday and continuing on every weeknight), here's a short prequel clip. I have no idea if this is actually part of the series (i.e. excerpted from an episode), or an online exclusive, or from one of the DVDs, or what, but here it is anyway. There are several other featurettes, trailers and prequel clips on the site as well.

Music

The Ultimate Collection by Electric Light Orchestra
Never really listened to ELO before (apart from the odd song, of course), but there many I recognised among these 38 tracks but hadn't realised who they were by.

Articles

The Best And Worst TV Episode Titles by Dave Golder
(from SFX)
The list of worst titles (on a second page) includes a variety of puns that, really, fall into the "so bad they're good" category.

The Birth of the Babylon 5 Story by J. Michael Straczynski
(from TheJoeStore)
"In 1999, J. Michael Straczynski allowed his original notes on Babylon 5 to be released via his Last Word column in the Babylon 5 Magazine (Vol. 2, Issue 9). These notes were the first written record of Babylon 5, made moments after he had his inspiration for the series while taking a shower. Though the magazine is long gone, on this, the 10th anniversary of this column's publication, he wanted to share the origins of Babylon 5 again."

Poem of the Week: Cabbage

(after 'I like that stuff' by Adrian Mitchell)
by Roger McGough

This is, to my mind, Good Poetry. It's funny, but with a serious point too, and therefore very dark. I may set my sights on writing stuff like this, only I'm not sure I'd be good enough.

Humphrey Bogart died of it
People are terrified of it
cancer
I hate that stuff


Peter Sellers was laid low with it
one in five of us will go with it
heart attack
I hate that stuff


Monroe's life turned sour on it
Hancock spent his last half hour on it
sleeping pills
I hate that stuff


Jimi Hendrix couldn't wait for it
Chemistshops stay open late for it
heroin
I hate that stuff


Mama Cass choked on it
Blankets get soaked in it
vomit
I hate that stuff


Women learn to live with it
No one can live without it
blood
I hate that stuff


Hospitals are packed with it
Saw my mother racked with it
pain
I hate that stuff


Few like to face the truth of it
We're all living proof of it
death
I hate that stuff


Schoolkids are forcefed with it
Cattle are served dead with it
cabbage
I hate that stuff

First published in 1979 in Holiday on Death Row, this was copied from his 2003 volume Collected Poems (in which some poems are revised, though there's nothing to indicate which). The latter volume contains 397 pages of work spanning almost 40 years of his career, including seven previously unpublished pieces.