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

Yes, I should be out enjoying the sun, and everyone else will be so this will go unread, but I'm waiting for the washing machine and I have a week to get down before it slips my mind. A week spent mostly in Devon, where some newly-revealed clay from about 150 million years ago had its first encounter with the mammalian age when I plunged in up to the knees while looking for ammonites, and I went to Jasper Hazelnut's cafe, and saw someone with a hare lip outside ads for Third World children for the first time I can remember, and couldn't really blog on account of a deranged cursor. The train to Devon is lovely, following a stream much of the way and passing fields with cows, and llamas, and in one case horses and chickens grazing contentedly together.

And when the nights drew in, what did I watch?
Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle: good, but perhaps not as good as we all expected after his long absence from our screens. An out comics fan has no place attacking adults for reading Harry Potter, but beyond that, simply filming stand-up feels weird, like watching a straight filming of a stage play.
Given Mad Men's scrupulous sixties style, what the blazes were they doing soundtracking the opening of last week's episode with the Decemberists? Yes, they sound timeless, and it wasn't as if Don Draper was getting into MIA, but it still threw me.
I only watched the first episode of Party Animals, but my mum's a fan and had missed the final episode, so I watched along - an unusual experience for me, who is never normally a casual viewer. The main interest, of course, being to see what the Eleventh Doctor's performance was like. I'm still mainly repeating 'Trust Moffat. Trust Moffat' to myself. Andrea Riseborough and Excelsor from No Heroics were good, though, if basically playing the same characters (the devious slapper and the smug git).
The Tomb of Ligeia is the last and not the best of the Roger Corman/Vincent Price/Edgar Allan Poe films, in part because one of the major roles is the possibly-possessed cat, and as anyone who's seen Breakfast at Tiffany's will know, cats can't act - they can at best be thrown onto the set by the AD. Typically, the film owes as much to Poe's 'M.Valdemar' as 'Ligeia', but more than anything else Vincent Price seems to be playing James Robinson's Shade, right down to the hat and the glasses. No bad thing, obviously.

"The Pope also warned of a threat to the Catholic Church...from the "growing influence of superstitious forms of religion". Next week; why racism threatens Nazism. Sidious' deranged ramblings about condoms in Africa are, of course, a despicable attempt to take advantage of the vulnerable, but closer to home, last night on Stroud Green Road there was a team, dressed like bouncers, of 'Street Pastors', strolling around at closing time looking for the lost and lonely like so many spiritual date-rapists.
(And with perfect timing, as I finished writing this some more of the scoundrels came to my door. Given I'd discharged my bile here, I didn't even have enough fire left for more than a curt 'No Thank You' and a slammed door)

As of Thursday evening, I'm heading off to Ireland for a long weekend. I will likely be away from the Internet as well as London; if all goes according to plan, I should be returning to both late on Sunday, and then out on Monday to see Los Campesinos! live for the first time - anyone else planning on attending that? Meanwhile, am mainly emptying bottles of eg bubbles in order to transport <100ml of shampoo, facewash &c. I really would take a slightly increased risk of being blown to smithereens over all this faff.

As with The Sarah Jane Adventures, it was only through iPlayer's 'you may also like' smarts that I learned of the existence of The Scarifyers, in which Nicholas Courtney (basically playing the Brigadier) and Terry Molloy (basically playing a cuddly, ineffectual Davros) ally with Aleister Crowley against the horrors of the Cthulhu Mythos. It's neither as funny nor as thrilling as I think was intended, but still, it does have the Brig! And through its outro I also learned that Paul McGann's Doctor will be back on Radio 7 in a six-part adventure from this Sunday. The title, and whether it's already been released as by Big Finish, were not divulged, but I know from the excerpts that I've not heard it.
And speaking of the Cthulhu Mythos - you might thing that investigating the 'ghost peaks' of Antarctica is about as Mountains of Madness as it comes, but just to make sure, read down the article. Read down to the bit where one of the scientists explains how these mountains should not be, how "it's rather like being an archaeologist and opening up a tomb in a pyramid and finding an astronaut sitting inside. It shouldn't be there." Then lose 1d6 SAN.

Far too often I hear from the semi-literate that a given deck-monkey has "literally blown the roof off the club" or a particular slice of vinyl "literally set the club on fire". Saturday's Seven Inches/Penny Broadhurst/New Royal Family Show did end with the club at least smouldering; even if causality cannot be proven, that leaves them well ahead of the pack.

I didn't think it was possible, but I find myself feeling as if I've had enough Stephen Fry for the moment. Perhaps it's just that his tour around the USA launched over the same weekend as Simon Schama's American Future: a History; I get very picky when multiple things seem to cover the same ground (consider how much less forgiving I am of Heroes now it's not only overlapping comics territory, but screening in the same weeks as No Heroics). This is the sort of stuff Schama does best - big ideas, neither yoked too much to specific camera-friendly events nor floating off into the swamp of spurious Adam Curtis generalisations. It's what first drew him to me back with Landscape and Memory. The only problem is that as he tells us how the US has always had a tension between an optimistic belief in perpetual abundance, and the cautious counsel of realists, he is operating on a BBC far too awed these days by the false idol of 'balance'. So he can select clips which hint that Obama is a wise man and McCain another dangerous snake-oil salesman, but he can't say as much, only make vague references to the importance of this election. It's still worth watching, but I hope that once the good guys win in November (please gods), it can be repeated in an extended, re-armed version.

Kenneth Branagh would appear to be confirmed to direct the Thor film if he's cancelling other engagements. If anyone can handle it so as to make Thor sound Shakespearean, as against the ghastly Renaissance Fair approximation with which the ever-incompetent Stan Lee burdened him, then it's probably Ken. Still, after Stardust I think the loss of Matthew Vaughan remains unfortunate.

It's remarkably civilised of ITV to put all their halfway-watchable shows in the same 90 minute block. Secret Diary of a Call Girl was always borderline, and now they're deviating from the book even more, not just normalising Belle but embroiling her in lamely generic plots about proteges and politicians - plus, the director seems increasingly inept at hiding the use of body doubles. Nonetheless, it's better than anything else ITV squeeze out, or would be if tomorrow it weren't followed by the debut of No Heroics. I haven't seen it yet, but it stars Nathan Barley and James Lance and is set in a pub for off-duty superheroes where the drinks include V For Vodka and Shazamstell, and thus even with ITV's reverse Midas touch in the equation, it basically can't fail. Then after that, Entourage, which is still ludicrous fluff, and still utterly wonderful. No need to check the rest of the schedules! And no need to bother with ITV1 at all, thank heavens.

How can people say there are no good band names left in a world with Adebisi Shank? If you don't agree, you presumably haven't seen Oz, and if you haven't seen Oz, that's between you and your conscience.

As much as I love Saint Etienne, neither of the times I've seen them before convinced me. But context counts for a lot; they're the sound of London on a good day, of the retro-futuristic spirit that gave the city things like the South Bank. So walking down from Bloomsbury and through the Thames Festival, with its gay Aztecs and giant butterflies and Lithuanian folk-dancers, and the show being in the Queen Elizabeth Hall (where Sarah incites quite the most polite insurrection I've ever seen, encouraging dancing in the aisles)...it helps them make sense live like they do on record. And well done Heavenly for managing to turn the foyer into a plausibly clubby space, too.
It was a strange weekend; even more than usual I was beset by the mutterings of whichever church father it was who lamented "Oh, that we had spent but one day in this world thoroughly well." Not that I think his idea of time well spent would have much in common with mine, but that line haunts me nonetheless. And this in spite of participating in a sitcom read-through accompanied by experimental booze science, getting some sewing done which I'd been putting off for months, a wonderful birthday dinner for a dear friend on Saturday...not such a wasted weekend as all that, but at my back I always hear, &c. There's a thought - the Marvell expert was out on Saturday, maybe it was his fault.
Oh, and sun dogs! Perfect examples, on the very day when I'd been reading the chapter of The Cloud-Spotter's Guide about them. While admiring which I was accosted by two antipodeans who wanted to borrow my mobile in exactly the sort of scenario which could have been a scam - but wasn't, thus restoring some fragment of my faith in humanity.

Speaking of faith in humanity - I enjoyed John Scalzi's future war novel Old Man's War, but thus far I like the sequel The Ghost Brigades even better. Partly this is because it answers some niggling questions I had about the setting - questions which weren't explicitly set up as mysteries and could simply have been inconsistencies. But more than that for its sheer ruthlessness, its recognition that when faced with a populous and implacable galaxy, humanity's greatest resource is that we are utter bastards. Of course, this is also why in reality, and even in my very favourite fiction, I would much rather we were just used as attack dogs in a galactic civilisation run by something halfway civilised, because the idea of trusting us to run the show is terrifying. But for the odd pulp thrill, Humans Versus The Galaxy has its charms.
(You might not expect a segue from that to the Lib Dem conference. But when Nick Clegg, name notwithstanding, says "most people, most of the time, will do the right thing"...I wonder whether he's grown up with the same human race I have, and even more than with his plans for tax cuts, I fear that his party is just too far away from anything I believe nowadays for me to vote for them in good conscience. On the other hand, he's dead right about the zombies and the Andrex puppy)