I haven’t seen this sort of response before, so I thought I’d draw it to your attention: Scarlett Johansson responds to recent press allegations about her weight loss.
Hmm, I’ve been posting a lot of links this week, haven’t I ? Still, it probably comes as a nice break from my usual nonsense.
As well as the scripts for three episodes, The Wire Bible is now available online.
(I’m as yet un-evangelical about the programme, having only seen a handful of episodes; by the way, BBC, if you’re going to put a show on every night, how about putting it on at the same time so people who don’t have Sky+ [people who might have, for example, got a freeview box in line with the BBC’s suggestions that people get ready for the digital switchover] can watch it? Just a thought.)
There’s an idiot of my acquaintance who claims to be able to heal people by waving his hands around them whilst they stand up.
He tried it on me once, and confidently told me that I had some back pain, which I told him was not the case, and cheerfully asked him why he’d missed the fact I had a blinding near-migraine headache which was rendering me half-blind in one eye. Hmph. He also claims to be able to heal people over the phone, so he doesn’t even need to be in the same place as them. I don’t know if he’s genuinely deluded or lying to extract money from the unwary, but I think that on any reasonable assessment of, y’know, facts, it’s pretty clear what he’s saying isn’t true.
Mind you, I wouldn’t want you to think that I’m equating belief in such matters with idiocy – he’s an idiot in many other regards, but as that rather strays into personal stuff I needn’t share here, I won’t go into any more details; suffice to say people who know me well, and of some of the events of the past five years, will know who I’m talking about.
Anyway, as hot is matched by cold and day is twinned with night, so such idiocy is balanced by intelligence; nature, they say, abhors a vacuum, and I guess it also dislikes a prevalence of empty brains, for there are people in the world who are very happily married to the accumulation of knowledge through verifiable experimentation and the accretion of provable facts.
Such a person is Ben Goldacre.
Ben – and I’ll call him that so he doesn’t sound like a Bond villain – writes on the subject of Bad Science in various newspapers and his blog of that title, and is frequently a clear voice of sense in an area which is all too often (and, it seems, all too easily) rendered indistinct and vague by all sorts of new-agey woo-woo. If you haven’t visited his blog before, I recommend a look.
And it’s because of a recent update to his blog that I’m posting; some time ago, Ben suggested it wasn’t right that vitamin-pill entrepreneur Matthias Rath was taking out adverts denouncing the use of AIDS drugs in South Africa, and promoting his vitamin pills at the same time. Mr Rath took umbrage with this, and sued Ben and the paper that his comments were published in, claiming libel. The case went on for over twelve months, until Mr Rath withdrew the case – but by this time the costs involved in fighting the action were around half a million pounds. Steps are being taken to recover this money, but in the meantime, the removal of the legal action means that Ben’s free to add his chapter on Rath to his book – also called Bad Science – but in order to get the information ‘out there’ to as many people as possible, he’s also put the entire chapter on the web.
You can find it as a PDF here or, if you don’t have Adobe Reader, it’s available as an MS Word document here.
I’m ashamed to admit that, whilst I’ve always enjoyed his blog and print work (and he came over well on some TV consumer-thing I saw him in the other week), I don’t yet own a copy of Ben’s book. Methinks I should set about remedying that…
You need to have an iTunes account and be over 13 years old, but if that applies to you and you’d like to download a free copy of the episode Last Of The Time Lords, then click here.
Offer ends on Monday 20th April, and is something to do with the Radio Times, I think. I have to say, you don’t get that quality of freebie with TV Quick.
Perhaps it’s the fact that they’re both would-be lotharios, but I feel that Jay of The Inbetweeners (played by James Buckley) looks rather like a young version of Jack from On The Buses, as played by Bob Grant.
Just me, then? Ah well.
Anyway, The Inbetweeners is a horribly accurate depiction of male teenagers, and very funny as a result. Have a look at it by following the link above – all the episodes are, I think, free to download or stream from Channel 4’s 4OnDemand service, so you can see if you like it for nought pee.
People who try to disguise the fact they’re requesting something from you by mangling verbs into nouns
They say: “I know it’s a big ask…”
You say: “That’s okay, because it’s matched by a small reply – No.”
(Yes, it’s a short lesson, but it’s a Bank Holiday, so I’m letting you out of class early. Go and have some fun.)
However, for those of you who’ve watched the show, there’s an interesting item to be found here. It’s an interview with Matt Haley, who was lined up to be the artist on a comic continuation of the story. Yes, I know, I’d never heard of it either, but it’s an interesting tale of a nearly-was, and from the look of Matt’s art (an example of which is attached to this post), he would have been a good choice of artist.
So, worth clicking on that link, I’d say. And one day, I promise, I’ll post about why I consider Twin Peaks to be so good, and important. Maybe I should make it a whole series of posts, in fact.
Oh yes, the world is holding its breath as it waits for my ill-informed comments about a long-cancelled TV show, no question about that.
So then, join me in being slightly bemused by the forthcoming Star Trek fragrances.
Pictured are the two aimed at men, Tiberius, which will enable you to shout the word “Khan” with startling passion, and – more amusingly to my mind – Red Shirt, because (and I quote) “Tomorrow may never come”. For the ladies, and not pictured (but you can find out more about it at the link), there’s a fragrance named after a Vulcan mating ritual, which I can only hope is a bit more alluring than it sounds.
Still, as one who frequents comic shops and other purveyors of TV and Film merchandise, it’s nice to see someone’s – well, if not necessarily conceding that some hardcore Trek fans can be a bit on the whiffy side, at least addressing the possibility. And in a collectible fashion, no less.
Forget warp drives, that’s what I call progress.
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t entirely convinced by Robert McKee’s Story.
It explains itself well as it goes along, and gives good examples and the like, but at the end of it all I just felt slightly overwhelmed by the almost algorithmic charts and equations involved, and something about it didn’t quite sit right with me. It’s entirely possible that I lost the thread somewhere along the way, and that I’m resenting the theory for my lack of understanding, but it could just be that it’s a matter of horses for courses, every particular writer having son gout, and all that.
So anyway, I don’t quite adhere to McKee’s approach, but I certainly couldn’t discount it either – a lot of people are big fans, and if nothing else, he’s passionate about trying to discern what makes some stories work and others flounder – so it’s only right that I point out that he’s in the UK – specifically London – next week, doing some of his seminars; one on Love Stories, and then his famous Story Seminar.
It’s short notice, yes, but I only found out myself last night, and I’m breaking away from my hot cross buns (not a euphemism) to post this, so it’s as fast as I could letcha know, all right?
Good.
Well, now we’ve got that settled, this is the link you need to click for more details.
And I note one level of the tickets entitles you to a free copy of Final Draft – however, as people who buy it from authorised suppliers are eligible for a free copy of the new version which is due in May, you might want to make sure that, if you get it this way, you’ll also be entitled to the free upgrade.
(On which theme, I’ll be interested to see what people think of FD v8 when it comes out; I’ve been using Celtx and Word and waiting to hear that FD’s new version is more readily compatible with Vista.)
Oh dear.
Could we get a coffee for Mr Quigg, please? Or some Red Bull?
Ah sod it, get a man with a pointy stick.
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