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

The headlines of late may be a seemingly endless parade of semi-comprehensible financial doom, so I've been very glad of the Somali pirate debacle. Yes, I know that real modern pirates are not nice men (for that matter, nor were the old school, whatever the twinkle in Errol Flynn or Johnny Depp's eye might try to tell you otherwise). But it's still hard not to love a story in which pirates nick 33 tanks, and then manage to shoot three of their own number during a debate over tactics.
"He said radicals on board wanted to keep the shipment of 33 T-72 tanks and other weapons in Somalia while the moderates wanted "to back-pedal on the ransom issue"."
Moderate pirates!

Marie Antoinette is a spectacularly boring film. And I use those words precisely - it is at once spectacular, and boring. I've watched both of Sofia Coppola's previous films in a sort of doze, but this time I was watching with friends so that wouldn't fly. Nonetheless I was lulled into enough of a dream state that, as when you're in a cruise ship which is also your school, the distinction between Kirsten Dunst and Scarlett Johansson ceased to have any meaning to me and I started talking about the former's album of Tom Waits covers. The sets, the costumes are so lavish, made and dressed and shot with such obvious love...and yet the film conspires to make you stop looking at them, or at least half-close your eyes, with its majestic tedium.
The new series of The Sarah Jane Adventures, on the other hand, was clearly made for about thruppence and yet it's full of thrills. And that's not even as strained a link as you might think, because the astronomer in the first two episodes has previously played Robespierre opposite Richard E Grant's Scarlet Pimpernel, so there. But really, this was cheap; there's some model work with the radio telescope which would have been at home on Thunderbirds, and yet it's still a better Sontaran story than the last series of Doctor Who managed. The only problem being - they do rather let this show sneak out, don't they? I know it's on in the teatime slot for children, but they must know that a fair amount of adult Doctor Who fans want to watch it, so why is it not brought to our attention a little more?

Am increasingly losing patience with the mice. Given I have now learned that 'put a donk on it' is a viable solution to all problems, I am wondering how best to put a donk on a mouse, and even (though I hesitate to ask) how exactly that would help.