Detective thrillers and the Death Star

So, how are they going to explain that one?
Sorry, no, I'm not talking about how a cruise ship ran aground killing more than six people and endangering more than 4,000 people with confused and delayed evacuation procedures.
Is giving the locals of Giglio a good view of the massive ship, considered a good explanation?
I'm quite sure the cruise ship spotting locals didn't particularly want the £62 million view they got.
I was also looking forward to Labour MP Tom Harris' explanation regarding his little Hitler video. He used scenes from the german film 'Downfall', about Hitler's last days, and replaced the dictator's voice with that of Alex Salmond. Hilairious.
Also why was Ricky Gervais hired to host the Golden Globes again and then completely tame himself down after his blistering performance at last year's awards ceremony. Disappointing.
And can someone also explain to me why I should be watching 'Downton Abbey'? It seems to be winning prizes and praise everywhere but, from what I can tell, it just looks like a Sunday night mash up of 'Upstairs Downstairs' and 'Heartbeat'.
I spent Sunday night watching the brilliant last episode of the BBC's latest, ridiculously short, second series of 'Sherlock'. Thankfully, the story was far superior to last week's, rather silly, modernisation of 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' (involving factories, toxix gas, and glow in the dark rabbits) and got straight down to the nitty gritty with the re-emergence of Moriarty, Sherlock's nemesis, who, in this series, is a small skinny, psychopathic, maniacal of a man, desperate to bring the detective down in a frenzy of publicity (presumably another meaning for the 'Fall' in the title).

The episode was clever and tense with the three main players keeping you hooked all the way to the bitter, but then debatable end. The build up and the final moments were all brilliantly done and superbly acted by Cumberbatch and Freeman, the two showing just how perfect they are for the two roles. Of course, we all know how the original, 'Final Problem' ended. The question was, how were Moffat and co going to portray it, in this modern day take and how the devil are they going to explain it?
I have a theory... it's a bit far fetched, but then, any explanation Moffat comes up with will have to be.
Speaking of mysteries, Ka and myself seen David Fincher's excellent retelling of 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' on Saturday. Dark, gritty, tense and thrilling with the occasional moment of awkwardness, violence and discomfort. Everything that makes Fincher, one of my favourite directors, tick.

Daniel Craig is great as the worn out, ground down journalist, Blomkvist, but it is Rooney Mara that steals the show as the awkward, introverted but fantastically intelligent Lisbeth Salander. When the 'hollywood' version of the story was announced it seemed strange and way too soon after Niels Arden Oplev’s original, which I haven't seen yet. Cinema 'purists' will probably moan, stick their nose up or complain that the original, foreign, movie should be the only version to see. Ask them if they've read the book though. Once they've read the book, they can kid on to be purists.
With Steig Larsson's book Fincher makes a pretty damn good thriller and definately one worth checking out, whether you're familiar with the story or not, though some scenes may be a bit much for the faint hearted.
As are some of the scenes in 'Celebrity Juice'.
On Sunday, Sarah and Brian had the family round for a buffet lunch and my Aunt Anne was asking why Keith Lemon, the host of the rude tv show, continually wore a bandage on his right hand. Sarah couldn't bring herself to explain and simply told her Mum and Dad to not watch it in future.
Whilst we all chatted and caught up in the living room Brian spent the majority of his time in the kitchen, making all the teas and coffees whilst keeping an eye on his samosas, pakora, pizzas and mini steak pies. A great way to hide from the in-law's and the extended family. For pudding Mum had brought, possibly, the biggest sponge cake known to man and Linda had brought her traditional trifle, both of which I had to have a portion of, though I wish I'd kept the cake until later.
When the buffet was first put out I found myself having a bit of a geek moment upon entering the front room to get my first helping.
Standing alongside the front window, on a bookcase at the end of the buffet table, stood the unmistakable forms of the Empire's Death Star. The four legged, tank like, AT-AT stood menacingly, alongside it. Both were in Lego form, intricately detailed with all the features you'd expect, or any sad Star Wars fan would expect anyway.

The Lego Death Star is built in a cross section like formation housing many sets and scenes from the original movie including the hangar bay with parked TIE fighter, the detention block, from which Princess Leia was rescued, and the tractor beam controls, where a small Lego Obi Wan Kenobi stands with his light saber. It even has the trash compactor unit, with closing walls, which adjoins the detention block by way of a small trap door. If I hadn't had to socialise yesterday I would have quite happily stood and admired the Lego set's fantastic detail, although, after a quick look online, I've discovered it is now going for the princely sum of £400.
The At-At was pretty impressive too - my Mum and Dad immeditely recognising it was one of the large toys that still sits in their loft alongside the X-Wing, Slave-1 and the Millenium Falcon.
My Mum still makes the occasional comment regarding the large amount of stuff I have which makes up a good portion of the contents of her loft. Ka occasioanlly threatens to take all the old Kenner Star Wars figures, ships and accessories off to her nursery in an attempt to wind me up.
That would just be dispicable of her though, and she knows it.
Can you imagine the carnage caused by the ravenous little three year old rogues Ka teaches in her class? There would be bashes, cracks, snaps, crushings, dismemberments, beheadings, not to mention a healthy dose of painted, bruised and crayoned faces. It makes me shudder just thinking about it. The toys would be safer getting sent to the Spice Mines of Kessel and smashed into who knows what!
Mum looks forward to the day when Ka and myself will eventually get a loft, or some form of bigger and better storage cupboard in a new, different house. One day Ka and myself will be having our first dinner in our brand new house and there'll be a knock on the front door. I'll pull open the door to find no one waiting, only a large pile of boxes with a small note attached.
"At last!", it'll read.
Brian may have all the fancy, up-to-date Star Wars Lego kits, but at least I've still got all the original toys.
If I was to sell them on ebay I may even make some money!
I wonder if I could afford the Lego Death Star then? I'm not sure I'd be able to explain why I spent £400 on a large piece of lego.
I'd give it a shot though.

An announcement

As Dave and myself slipped and slid our way up the icey streets of Hamilton to work on Tuesday morning, we met one of the Sub editor’s on the way up the hill.
“Did you here there’s to be an announcement today?”, the Sub Editor asked us as we walked up the treacherous roads. I rolled my eyes.
The dreaded ‘announcement’.
A word that has filled me with great suspicion and depression, ever since I started work at Scottish & Universal newspapers.
Generally, when there was to be an ‘announcement’ in S&UN it meant one of few things. The production of titles being halted, offices closing or more than a few people losing their jobs. Unfortunately the third possibility has been the most recurring instance in my six years at the company, so I walked into the office with a heavy heart and sat down at my desk, grimly wondering what the eleven o’clock summoning was all about.
The employees, throughout the whole building, were instructed to gather in the Advertising department, so, at the specified time, we all shuffled down the corridor and into the large, high ceilinged, office to find the big boss waiting on us. We all stood in a brewing silence, awaiting this new announcement as the last few stragglers made their way into the office.
"We are delighted to announce..." the boss immediately started with a most unusual and unexpected term of phrase taking me by surprise. This must be an announcement with a difference, I thought. 'Delighted' is a pretty strong word, especially in a company announcement. Delighted is pleasant surprise. Joy. Smiling with raised eyebrows. What was such a word doing here? That wasn't supposed to happen.Where was the suspected grim announcement of doom?
The big boss explained, reading from a printed sheet. It seems Scottish & Universal Newspapers is to merge with the other divisions of Trinity Mirror in Scotland including the Daily Record and the Sunday Mail making a brand new 'Media Scotland', together making Scotland's biggest publishing business. The boss then went on to talk of the vast numbers this new company would reach, the reformation capitalising its resources to reach all corners of the market and make an audience of up to 1.5 million readers every day. The new management team was announced along with the official announcement of the departure of Bruce Waddell, who had been the Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Record for the past eight years.
The boss told us all that we should be proud to be present at the birth of a new age, a new era in Scottish publishing, the birth of a new business which well reshape the Scottish media landscape for years to come. He then told us it would be a month before he had any more, substantial news for us regarding the reformation.
A month to wait for further details... Following the heavy loss over in Glasgow's Central Quay Daily Record in the past summer and what we, in S&UN Prepress have just been through ourselves in the past year, a team of 30 odd reduced to 12, it's hard to be optimistic about all this, especially with the usual tales of gloom and doom circulating around the offices almost as soon as we left the advertising department on Tuesday morning. The content sharing move and merging of companies is a move which may well mean yet more redundancies and job losses.What will happen in a month's time? What does the New Year have in store for us?
Christmas and New Year are going to be difficult enough for myself and Ka as it is, without having to worry about my job. So I am not going to. Ka and myself have been through, and are still going though, worse. Lucy's anniversary preys heavily on our minds, ever more so with the approach of Christmas and New Year, so getting us through December has to be my personal, number one priority at the moment. I'll worry about S&UN later.

Who would live in a house like this?

So, Osama Bin Laden is dead. About time too. It's only been at least nine and a half years since he was put at the top of the World's Most Wanted list after killing thousands. Apparently he wasn't even holed up in some cave, hidden away, somewhere in the Afghan or Pakistan mountains either. He was living it up in a mansion with his four wives, his maids and a couple of buddies, getting his papers delivered everyday, probably having a great time. All the while, just around the corner, the Pakistan Military Academy stood, it's recruits and generals toiling away in their fight against terror.
Did nobody in that Academy know that they were living next door to the World's Most Wanted? Very suspicious. Even more embarrassing is the fact that a bunch of American troops were in the Academy, on a training program, as little as two years ago.
Would one of the troops or recruits not have thought to say anything, after dodging out the back for a sneaky cigarette, after spotting Bin Laden playing swing ball in his backyard or hanging his y-fronts on the washing line?
An American General probably stood out on a balcony on the back of the Military Academy late one night, munching a fat cigar, glaring out over the Pakistan town. As he looked out over the darkening desert landscape he'd be grimly muttering, "Where could he be?", failing to notice the one house surrounded by 12ft walls not 1km away from him.
No doubt there'll be a statement from the Americans saying they knew he was there all along and were simply carrying out a secret mission, of some sort, to confirm the Al Qaeda leader's whereabouts.
The 12ft walls surrounding Bin Laden's compound must have been great for keeping out the neighbours though.
But this also begs the question of, did nobody think it was suspicious that this one mansion, the biggest residence in the whole of the town, had 12ft walls surrounding it complete with a lining of silvery, glinting barbed wire, large security gates and a small collection of satellite dishes and CCTV cameras, whirring around? Was nobody even curious as to who lived there? Nobody thought to go round for a cup of sugar or with a basket of muffins?
And why are people calling it a mansion? It looks abysmal. There's not even a swimming pool and it's in serious need of a good coat of paint at the very least. Perhaps the word mansion has a different meaning over there?
Apparently it was valued at $1 million. Who the hell was the estate agent? Doctor Evil?

Hell freezing over

Well, the whole of Britain woke up yesterday to snow. England panicked. Scotland sort of... shrugged. We all knew it was coming. The weathermen had forecast it. But still England seemed to panic. A whole three or four inches had fallen during the night in England, and around two in Scotland and by watching the English news you'd think another Ice Age had descended upon us. lf three or four inches of snow had hit us in Scotland overnight, we'd all have got up as usual and struggled into work, barely making the headlines. But when England gets it all hell breaks loose... or freezes over. There were news reporters standing on the banks of the Thames in yesterdays news telling us with serious, grim faces how this particular wall had over five inches of snow on top of it. Headlines, newspapers, the internet bulletins, all yelling about disasterous weather conditions, idiot drivers unable to cope, buses, trains and planes all ceasing transportation, electricity and gas supplies abruptly stopping, Boris Johnson pleading for more grit lorries like a very boring Bob Geldoff, schools and companies closing down, the shops of Oxford Street deserted and football transfers not being able to go ahead... in person. Unbelievable. The English get a wee bit of snow and suddenly think it's The Day After Tomorrow. Staying at home with the curtains drawn, the lights off, gripping their children tightly to their chest and praying for a miracle, thanking their lord for the great life they had led until those moments. My Aunt Ann, who live down in London sent me some pics via email of the wondorously uncommon snowfall in her area of Fulham. She was more excited than anything else. Anything to enable her to stay out of the office, I suspect. On getting out of work early, I also went out and took some pictures. Some of the women in the office were a bit panicky, of course. Let's face it, we all know what women drivers are like at the best of times (joke!).
On returning home I decided to park our car at the top of our hill, as we live on a steep street, and leave it in a safer place for the night, and a place that would be easy to manoeuvre out of in the morning if there had been more snowfall. Moments after parking, as I sauntered over the snow covered grass to our street, I heard a sudden squeal. Spinning round I froze, (not literally), as a BMW came down the hill, directly in front of my safely parked car. The BMW then started to drive at an alarmingly strange angle, it's rear heading straight for my freshly parked car's headlights. With a scrunch of ice and snow and a strange deathly silence the large car spun over the road in a 180 degree angle, nudging itself over the pavement infront of the Toyota but thankfully grinding to a rather unstable halt. Not being outwitted by some feeble snow, the BMW driver then decided to reverse determinedly half way down the street, as if to prove something to himself, the snow and any onlookers. After a few moments of pretending to be in complete control the driver hesitantly slowed to another, this time semi controlled, halt and performed a nice, sensible three point turn. (The only time you'll see 'nice' and 'sensible' in the same line as 'BMW driver' probably). If that BMW had slid any further, that would have been absolutely typical.
The snow is now gone, though, and we can all relax again. We did not get the predicted further foot of it during the night as forecast. A lot of scaremongering weathermen, if you ask me. Bring back Michael Fish, he used to tell you when things were definately not going to happen, but actually would. It's far more exciting that way. These new guys tell us whats going to happen, and it doesn't. Mr Fish would never have done that. He would have just came on and denied everything and then it would all have been a pleasant surprise in the morning for us all to wake up to.
"Oh, look everyone, it's been snowing... and there's a , er, BMW encased in my car bonnet... Quick call Jackie Bird!"