'huge, queer and tawdry' but 'much admired by the public'

In spite of having attended every Black Plastic to date, and having one of the promoters for a flatmate, I somehow managed to get the start time wrong and turn up half an hour early on Friday, which is quite special. In spite of that, and being fairly tired to begin with, I made it to the end - and beyond, even when the afterparty relocated. Admittedly I didn't last too long beyond that, but I still think this is a win for my new club strategy of having a banana in my pocket for midnight. And I'm glad I was around for it all, because it was a great night - perhaps in part because, as the usual postmortem conversations about who was incredibly drunk soon had us realising, pretty much everyone was incredibly drunk.
I wasn't about for most of Saturday, and even when I made it along in body, I was half-absent in spirit. Not that this was any impediment to continued boozing, of course, but once I hit Sunday and the Hangover Swish (a clothes-swapping event, incidentally, rather than some peculiar toxicological complication), one pint almost did for me so I bowed out early, and even then needed to take a break in Highbury Fields on my way home, and ended up having deeply peculiar fever dreams in which I was the one constant point in a universe which had been destroyed and recreated around me. Twice.

I don't normally link to Charlie Brooker's column, because by now I assume that everyone is aware of him and those who want to read it know to do so without my help. Furthermore, this Saturday's piece wasn't even one of his best. But I'm linking to it because, if you read it online, you got a censored version, and indeed one censored in such a way as to ruin the pacing. ( do not read this except in the proper context of the original piece )Anyone reading it in that context and failing to understand that it is satire rather than anti-Semitism is too stupid for their opinion to be worthy of consideration. But the 'Corrections and Clarifications' column says that while the piece was "intended to be satirical", it "should not hae appeared in the Guardian, before dragging Brooker himself on for a little Maoist self-criticism session. The Guardian: officially the paper for people too retarded or permanently offended to recognise satire.

Initially I had the same problem with Lizzie and Sarah that I have with a lot of Julia Davis projects; while I like dark comedy, she has the balance slightly skewed, and just having horrible things happen to your characters is not in and of itself funny. But because Jessica Hynes was also involved (and in spite of her last effort being that godawful drivel with David Tennant as her driving instructor), I persevered. And yes, come the twist it became rather entertaining, but given the nature of that twist, I now don't quite know how they'd get a whole series out of this pilot.

My worry reflex keeps trying to creep up on me at the moment, and I have to batter it down with reminders that life is pretty good right now. This weekend, for instance - found a new pub for weekends which I'm not even mentioning online in case Neil Morrissey is watching. Went to Don't Stop Moving where as well as all the pop you could want, These Animal Me's 'Speeed King' got an airing. And then yesterday...well, apparently that was the heaviest snow for 18 years. Certainly it was my best snow day since about then, the only contender being the time at school where it was the rest of us stick the sixth form in all-out snowball war around the whole grounds. We made a snowmonkey! With breasts! Who went to heaven! And then a snow Caesar! And I was totally the most dangerous snowballer, because I have the biggest hands! Happy times. Glorious times.

More handy reminders that the BBC isn't *just* for winding up tabloids and the scum who read them in the shape of The Old Guys and Moses Jones. The former I watched because it was conceived by Peep Show's Bain & Armstrong, and I was put off when the credits revealed that it wasn't actually written by them - was the writer their Chibnall equivalent? Nor did the laugh track augur well. But while it's undoubtedly a broader style of comedy than Peep Show - cf the lead roles going to Trigger and the guy from Keeping Up Appearances, with Jane Asher as the neighbour and Jen from The IT Crowd as the daughter - it's still a recognisable relative, wallowing in toxic male companionship and hilariously awkward moments. Moses Jones is a cop show which, let's be honest, I'm mainly watching because the Eleventh Doctor is the sidekick. Worryingly, so far he really hasn't done much. But Shaun Parkes is excellent as ever in the lead role, while the supporting cast for their journey into crime and ritual sacrifice in London's Ugandan community includes Kareem Said from Oz, Suzie Torchwood and a bunch of very good African actors I don't recognise. I'm finding it all distinctly reminiscent of The Vinyl Underground but a) it's still pretty good and b) frankly, not many people will experience this problem.

Recent dreams:
- In a manner reminiscent of Movember, loads of my friends were growing Hitler 'taches to mark his birthday. This was intended ironically, or as reclamation, or something, but it still felt like poor taste to me. Everyone else just thought I was being a spoilsport.
- Superman was our mate, and I went for a drink with him at the Salisbury because he was feeling a bit listless after the events of Final Crisis.

I may have spent Friday night walking with gods and monsters, and yesterday on the psychoactive lemonade with the chattering classes, but it's still 'Time Crash' for which I'll remember the weekend so far. Hell, even remembering it's getting me all misty-eyed. 'You were my Doctor.' Sniff.

I've had a great idea for a film, except because I watched it in a dream, now I'm vaguely concerned it might already have been done: Father Christmas invades the USA. I don't know what happens with Canada - non-aggression pact, presumably - but he sweeps down from the North Pole and soon subjugates the majority of the US (I didn't see this bit, but presume that with his manufactories on a war footing, and the FTL superstealth sleigh, it wouldn't be too hard). And I have no idea why he was doing it - was the film a 'real meaning of christmas' story, a political satire, or just crazy for the sake of it? I don't know, I didn't see the whole film. I just remember him in a khaki camouflage version of his outfit, in a Patton stance.

Why I shall not be going to the Tutankhamun exhibition.

Much-hailed talk of a 17% fall in heart attacks in Scotland since the smoking ban revealed as at best exaggeration, at worst another outright lie by the neo-puritans:
"It is conceivable, although perhaps unlikely, that the smoking ban had no effect at all...what appeared to be hard medical evidence now looks more like over-hasty and over-confident research, coupled with wishful political thinking and uncritical journalism."