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

Just when the prequel webisodes and the first half of the series opener had me worried that the new series of Primeval was a bit straightforward compared to the inspired lunacy of last series, that skating so close to cancellation had them scared - they had the character played by Hannah from S Club distract a totally enormous and temporarily non-extinct dinosaur by playing 'Don't Stop Moving' really loudly at it. Excellent. But it still feels very odd that the only exciting original programming on TV all week is two hours on ITV1.

So, New Year's Eve. I've not been to anything but a house party since the Islington Bar glory days of Stay Beautiful, or to anything which required public transport for nearly as long, and I think maybe I had the right idea. I like Bevan 17, I like the No Fiction resident DJs, I even liked the odd singer-songwriter/accordionist/beatboxer opening act who seemed even more out of place than I was as they did a surprisingly good cover of 'So Long, Marianne'. But the crappy 8 bit duo in between who spent 15 minutes fiddling about as though it was going to make them sound any less piss-poor, and the Whip's DJ set of headache electro, and the boozed-up populace of Kilburn who just wanted somewhere to get lairy, and the hordes of mad-eyed partyers on the Tube of whom half seem only to go out on this one night...no thanks. I'm still not sure if I was actually ill or just in some form of existential shock, but having only had two pints while out, by 2am I was in bed, and on New Year's Day I felt considerably worse than if I'd been overdoing it round a friend's house the night before as per usual. But I do like the way the unusual shape of the weeks this time round has stretched out the holiday season - it has less of a direct effect on me than on a lot of people, but the sense of a proper extended break, almost of carnival, is contagious.

Mark Gatiss' history of horror reminded me that years back, m'learned colleague dr_shatterhand had recommended I watch seventies Brit horror The Blood on Satan's Claw. Gatiss brackets it alongside Witchfinder General and The Wicker Man as 'folk horror', and I'd agree with the first half of that; as far as I'm concerned The Wicker Man isn't horror at all, but an Ealing comedy by another name. This, though...this is definitely horror. Sometime in the early 18th century*, somewhere in the English countryside, a demonic relic is unearthed and the village children's games turn sinister. Very gradually, at first, yet it's still terribly sinister, and I love that - it reminds me of Arthur Machen's 'The White People', or the final Quatermass, or Robert Holdstock's Lavondyss from before his Mythago books got dull, when they still captured all the strangeness and terror of myth. What could have been a Merrie Englande fiasco is instead just grotty enough and grey enough to feel like the real countryside on its off days, as the diabolic forces bubble up from beneath.
(Added points of interest for Doctor Who fans: sh1t eighties Master Anthony Ainley plays the vicar, and sixties companion Zoe aka Wendy Padbury is the centrepiece of a ritual gang rape scene which, alarmingly, was apparently pretty much improvised on the spot)

*The blurb says the 17th, but a Jacobite character toasts James III, so no.

Just returned from the Bankside 12th Night celebrations - unfortunate that the thing which best gets me in the relevant festive mood is the one marking season's end. It's vastly more popular than last time I went (I think I missed last year), but I still managed half-decent views of the Green Man's arrival and the wassailing, and was in a pretty good position for the mummers' play. There's a nagging sense in my mind of a half-formed connection between this and Popular last night - the Number One single as a British folk tradition, perhaps? - but I don't want to force it. Suffice to say, both were great fun. Highlight of Popular: 'Welcome To The Black Parade' into 'Boom! Shake The Room' (it may have a 100% strict concept, 'God Save The Queen' controversy aside, but how many nights can honestly equal that variety?). Highlight of 12th Night: the blithering arses next to me as the Green Man sails in justify their yapping by noting what I would otherwise have missed - there's a fragment of rainbow in the sky above us, and it's on a curved cloud. In other words - the sky smiled.
Post-mumming, took a look at the Tate's crack. I've seen better. Still, rather that than Catherine Tate's crack.

Don't know why I never got round to seeing Die Hard With A Vengeance sooner, given I love the first two, but the delay has made parts of it queasily prescient. Shots of the twin towers looming as New York is attacked I could have expected, but the real shocker...you know the plan Jeremy Irons and his accents are supposed to be undertaking, to beggar the USA? Dubya's pretty much managed that, hasn't he? And done it all while speaking in almost as silly a voice. Still, with Barack Obama's campaign regaining momentum, for now there's still hope. And in the Andes, two of the USA's hyper-rich are helping to fund an eye on the sky which will not only increase the sum (and accessibility) of human knowledge, but could well save us all from apocalyptic meteor impact. Isn't it odd how the merely super-rich seem content with vulgarity like diamond-studded mobiles and £35,000 cocktails, but the hyper-rich seem to rediscover altruism and vision? See also Warren Buffett.

A pretty quiet week for comics, but there were excellent new issues of Buffy (the first slow, character-centred episode of Whedon's Season Eight, but worth the wait) and Moon Knight. I still don't know what part of writing Entourage has equipped Mark Benson with a knack for brutal vigilante thrillers, but between his Punisher annual and this, I'm impressed. Just a shame about the art. Otherwise, it's Warren Ellis' week; Ultimate Human may not be the obvious title for a series marketing would probably rather have had as Ultimate Hulk Vs Iron Man, but fits the story Ellis has started telling, one of the happier vehicles for his recurrent fascination with the nature of posthumanity. Thunderbolts, on the other hand, is leaving the smart politics aside for the moment and concentrating on insanity, treachery and Venom eating people. Which also works.

Happy New Year, readers. I have no idea why I'm awake already and, while I am not suffering, nor am I in any fit state for Gravity's Rainbow. More Heroes? Yes, I think that would be about my level for the moment.
Have a good one, people.