By All Means Bother The Peanuts

[alexsarll]

Just returned from Rock'n'Roll, which as far as I'm concerned cements Tom Stoppard's place as *the* playwright of the last half-century. But before I say more than that, I need time to ponder it properly, for unlike too many of his supposed colleagues, he doesn't provide easy meat.

For reasons I can't wholly fathom, the new Doctor Who companion, Martha Jones, will be appearing in a book before she's made her TV debut. But having read 'Made of Steel', at least it doesn't exactly spoiler anything significant. Indeed, being one of the 'Quick Reads' series for simpletons, it's entertaining enough for half an hour but ultimately doesn't do a great deal of anything at all. The plot and dialogue are passable, about on a level with the more generic episodes of new Who, and Martha comes across as Rose Mk II, another feisty young lady - but then, Terrance Dicks was never exactly a master of characterisation. At least it doesn't have any of the outright idiocies to which RTD's reign has been increasingly susceptible, but it seems I must yet wait for the new TV series to form any real opinion on Martha.
(Meanwhile, over on the radio the current Paul McGann series has finished with another Cyberman story - which, like much that had come before, seemed like a hybrid of the new TV series and what Big Finish had done before. It wasn't without its own flaws, but the basic concepts were strong, and again, at least none of the stories were plain stupid)

Because shortsighted privatisation just hasn't gone far enough: "The future of radio microphones - used at concerts, sporting events, festivals and theatre shows - is under threat from new proposals from Ofcom. The media regulator is considering auctioning off the spectrum they operate on to the highest bidder, as part of the digital switchover."
Elsewhere in the vast field of governmental idiocy, this picture encapsulates why I will never vote for Ken Livingstone again, and indeed now hope to see him begging and broken in the gutters of the city he presumed to drag along on his slide into naive political grandstanding. And as for another of his cursed legacies, apparently Olympic transport plans rely on the "working assumption" that, on top of normal holiday departures, an additional 8% of Londoners would leave "to get away from the Games". The same Games which we're told are a great draw, are also now meant to drive an exodus? Plus, "MPs were particularly concerned that contingency plans for things like power failure, security alerts and signalling problems on the railways were not well developed." Because obviously these issues very rarely cause problems on London transport, right?

I don't play computer games very often anymore, so bear in mind my frame of reference isn't huge, but Marvel: Ultimate Alliance is bloody brilliant. A selection of heroes from the obvious to the obscure, with unlockable alternate outfits, all manner of fun powers, and a totally ridiculous plot existing solely so you can charge around the Marvel Universe hitting things. Want to send half the Fantastic Four, Deadpool and Elektra to beat up a bunch of rioting Atlanteans? You can. Want to lead Thor and Moon Knight on a religiously insensitive and needlessly violent rampage through a Shaolin temple? It's here. Want to ponder briefly why rubbish commie Iron Man knock-off Crimson Dynamo is meant to be in Asgard, before concentrating on the more important business of kicking his face off? Of course you do!
The most surprising thing for me (aside from getting stuck in corners and walking into slashing blades on account of above-mentioned lack of practice) was that I seemed to spend most of my time choosing to play characters I've never read in a comic, specifically Deadpool and Moon Knight. Though in Deadpool's case, the machinegun was definitely a factor.

Comments

[auxyeuxdargent.livejournal.com]

I'm excited to hear your thoughts on it... I, shockingly, haven't seen it yet and MUST before it ends... You introduced me to Stoppard by suggesting I read "The Invention of Love."

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

There are strange moments in this which remind me of that - a recurring Sappho motif, the question of whether it's somehow better for an artist to be criminalised - but as much that harks back to Travesties or The Real Thing.
You'd better get your skates on, though - I think it finishes this weekend!

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Travesties is brilliant. I did the sound for a production of it in Oxford. Cuckoo clocks, mainly.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I've never actually seen that one staged - and until today I'd never seen any of them professionally staged (well, unless you count the film of R&G).
The difference wasn't as great as I'd expected.

London Olympics

[the-roofdog.livejournal.com]

They use the word "flee"...

Re: London Olympics

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I can certainly understand the use of such terminology, but then I'm not one of the cheerleaders. Not that I intend to go anywhere; every invasion needs a resistance, even if I don't manage to do any more than direct peons searching for the Olympic 'Village' to take the Piccadilly Line to Heathrow.

[darkmarcpi.livejournal.com]

The whole "whoops, we didn't think of that" in relation to the Olympics is depressing but totally predictable, as I'm sure you have pointed out long ago. I suppose in fairness to them we will have to wait til 2012 to see exactly how fvcked up/over budget things actually prove to be, but it doesn't fill you with confidence.

As well as the above, having been witness to some perplexing/frustrating decisions at work recently, and also in my dealing with some organisations outside work in relation to my flat, finance, purchase of goods etc, I am beginning to think that everyone in some position of power is utterly incompetent. I mean, I know I am a perfectionist in many ways, and have high standards, but clichéd talk of Going The Extra Mile seems irrelevant if people can't even travel the actual distance they were only meant to in the first place. I mean, what ever happened to the concept of people actually being able to do the job they are paid to?

I suppose this is rather obvious, but perhaps with greater levels of power, responsibility and wealth comes, an decreased ability to think rationally and logically, for too many people. Although these people are obviously doing something right, as they earn more than me.

Ah well, rant over.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

People who advance within organisations are generally good at one particular skill: advancing within organisations. There remain a very few organisations which have not become entirely or predominantly about perpetuating themsleves, and in these skill at achieving the organisation's stated goals will suffice. More often, it's about politicking and saying the right thing to the right person more than any useful competence - and indeed, anyone who is actually competent will tend to become indispensable in the lowly-but-actually-more-important position they already hold; promoting them then would be self-defeating for the superiors.

And yes, we have to wait for 2012 (or after) to see just how badly things go wrong/over-budget - but that they will do so to some degree can no longer be doubted by anyone.
(If nothing else, I suppose having played Cassandra here from the start at least makes up for my doomed optimism wrt Iraq)

Thwip!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I was surprised by how effective Spidey was; I'd assumed that any game not specifically modelled around him would struggle to handle his powers decently, but turns out he does a nice line not only in swinging around, but in webbing villains and then chucking them into each other.

[strange-powers.livejournal.com]

I just started Marvel: Ultimate Alliance yesterday, and it's great - an expanded and improved version of the two X-Men Legends games, but that's no bad thing.

My favourite bit was switching to the Fantastic Four halfway through the SHIELD Helicarrier opening, then everyone apart from Sue getting wiped out. So, as Sue, kept going, attacking quickly, trying to pick up lots of health. Beat Winter Soldier and Monsieur Radioactive Fella by twatting them with a big metal bar - but was there a save point to restore the rest of the team? No, so then I had to fight Fin Fan bloody Foom on my own.

Naturally I managed it - so it's exactly like Marvel comics always are!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

mylifebythesea had already dealt with MODOK and Fin Fang Foom before I joined in the fun. I'm not gutted by this. Honest.

So what can one actually *do* with Sue? We didn't use her at all, though are now vaguely toying with letting the computer run her next time out.
Also, is it worth the bonuses to stick with official teams? I quite like the randomness of teaming up eg Ultimate Deadpool and Ultimate Colossus, who by rights should be trying to kill each other, plus a couple of 616 characters who shouldn't even be in the same universe...but discovering that these differences are petty compared to their shared interest in Healing America By Beating People Up.

[strange-powers.livejournal.com]

Well, the bonuses don't seem to be that earth-shattering but the fun is going to be in finding the odd teams from the 70s that the makers of the game have done their research to include, then hide away.

Sue's useful - she doesn't get attacked by anyone except the smartest enemies when invisible, and even then it's just them attacking where your presence registered last. As a lone fighter, she's great.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

But surely she still doesn't do that much damage (unless they've included force field brutality options)? I mean, when we couldn't work out how to use Strange's powers except flight, he was basically reduced to grabbing trolls and punching them repeatedly in the head. It was rather pathetic next to the others using one troll to hit another...