Rejected as a spin off series from the multi award winning best TV show on earth ever, Doctor Who, Hotrod Cow was planned to be the tale of a many uddered bovine superheroine, tearing around the highlands of Scotland in a souped up Austin Allegro.
Never getting past the pilot episode, we have instead the also cleverly anagramed spin off from the multi award winning best TV show on earth ever, Doctor Who - Torchwood.
And instead of a hairy polytit in a car, we have a massive tit in a trench coat.
Torchwood is supposed to be an 'adult version', of Doctor Who. If adding the odd 'piss', 'paedo', and 'fart' into the script makes something adult, then maybe it's not safe for pre watershed. But is that enough to make it an adult show, or is it just Doctor Who Light, made edgy with a big swear?
You could take the other spin off from the multi award winning best TV show etc....., The Sarah Jane Chronicles (a CBBC show - deffo for the kids), and turn it into an adult show by having her diddle herself stupid while K9 shoves his extendable eyepiece up her extended ringpiece, but it would still be just Doctor Who without the Doctor.
So is Torchwood sexy enough to make you want to touch wood? Is it scary enough to make you touch cloth? Or do you just want to torch the wooden actors?
It has returned to our screens this week in some kind of nightly extravaganza. Event television to force us into watching BBC1 every night, and play havoc with all the stuff that's already been series linked on Sky+
It started predictably enough. Grotesque lifeforms, fat and misshapen. Dribbling and spewing out words in an incomprehensible, alien guttural language.
Still, if you film in Cardiff, it is cheaper to use the locals as extras....
And yet even more terrifying than that, is the novel plot device used to creep us all out.
Never used before, except maybe in The Village of the Damned, The Omen, Children of the Corn, The Exorcist, Ringu, The Grudge.....erm.....Torchwood, and countless others....
Scary children.
Cheap, readily available, and fucking frightening without even the need for prosthetics, kids freak the hell out of me, especially when they all start doing the same pointy thing on mass, much like Donald Sutherland and his mates at the end of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers.
But the scary kids are just a precursor of bigger scarier things to come. The 456 are coming (not to be confused with Species 8472 from Star Trek Voyager), and the Government has made a special toxic gas filled tank for them to beam into, because as any self respecting Brit knows, if aliens wanted to come to earth, they would definitely come to London rather than Washington. There's more to see and do, and what with the Olympics round the corner, it's definitely the place to be.
However, interstellar travel does not seem to suit these creatures well. We've not yet been able to have a good look at them through the fug in their isolation tank, and it's not helped by the fact that they spew pea soup vomit down the glass every few minutes whilst squealing like a pig having it's neck slit open/Katie and Peters rendition of 'A whole new world'.
We'd better get a decent look at it in the next show. We're already 3 hours in, and I'm starting to suspect that the big reveal is going to be a bit of a let down. What's often scariest is what you don't see, so maybe they'll go down the 'keep it hidden' route.
And the biggest and scariest reveal we've had so far? The one thing that really should have stayed hiden? It's got to be the grainy image of John Barrowmans cock on a video monitor, then his bare arse covered in concrete dust, as he wandered naked and bewildered round a quarry in Wales.
This definitely nudges it way past adult entertainment, and well into not appropriate viewing for anyone.
So don't bother watching Torchwood. It is just Doctor Who Cares? Adult in attitude, but not in plotting or pace. A bit of swearing, gay characters, and a bit of gore doesn't make it into a grown up show, it just makes it Doctor Whos little brother trying to show off to impress his mates.
If you want to see real heroes battling hideous aliens in Cardiff, there's still another 4 days of "The First Ashes Test" there before the war moves on to London, and Lords.
Or "Fist Testes Sheather" as my hastily penned spin off series will be called. Or maybe "Te Shit Arse Thefts"I really haven't decided...All I do know is, it'll be better than Torchwood.
08 July 2009
06 July 2009
What's in a name?
Chillaxing in front of the TV tonight while Mrsslippy works to keep me in Bombay Sapphire gin and organic limes, I was alerted by the power of Facebook, and the good taste of Mrs Bellus, to a potentially shit a.k.a GREAT horror film on Sky 3.
Black Swarm, starring Robert 'Freddie Kruger' Englund is proper made for TV bile, and therefore great. So far the killer wasps have only been normal sized, but I'm holding out for a huge CGI motherfucker, on really a ropey greenscreen background.
And whilst watching, I'm reminded of another great creature feature from my youth that has left it's imprint on my life.
My blogging name is Slippymark, but nobody really calls me that. I am known to many friends in Cambridge as Slippy, but when creating usernames and logins for other websites (such as my photo pages), my real name was always taken, and Slippy was always too short, so I started using Slippymark for stuff, and found it was always available, so it has become my avatar. Go Google it, apart from the odd Underworld remix by Mark Mendes, it's me all the way down.
Don't search for Mrs Slippy - or at least not from a work computer. That Mr & Mrs Slippy are definitely not us...
But my friends from my formative years in Norwich do not know me as Slippy, and regular readers, or Facebook friends may have noticed, to them I am Rauc, or Homer.
First guess might be that it's something to do with the overweight, imbecilic man-child of the same name, but you'd be wrong. It pre-dates The Simpsons.
Nor is it short for homosexual. I may be a sensitive soul, but I'm too lazy, too poorly groomed, and too attracted to women to bat for that team. Sorry boys.
No, Homer stems from a film from my youth.....
Back in the late 80's, the formidable Cringleford lads were wrenched apart as key player Nick was relocated to Writtle, near Chelmsford.
To support him in his exile, Stoxie and I would go down on occasional weekends, and spend our days farting on his brothers head, playing tunnelball, and watching films on VHS.
In the days before 2 million channels of fuck all, and the endless possibilities of the internet, the only way to amuse 3 teenage boys of an evening would be for Nicks mum to drive us to the nearest video store, and us to get out absolutely anything that we hadn't seen before involving sport (American Flyer's anyone?), ninjas, or horror - usually one of each.
Let's not forget that this was before Blockbuster and other such mega chains. Video stores were the size of a walk in wardrobe, and stocked a copy of everything. And when I say everything, I don't mean they had a copy of every film, I mean no matter how new or popular a film was, they only ever had one of it - and the good ones were always out.
So by this process (which also held true at home), it was highly likely that if there was a bad sport/ninja/horror film made in the 80's, I've seen it (and since bought my own copy).
One fateful night, we returned to Nick's Elba with a copy of The Nest. A genre staple of island town plagued by mutated insects - in this case roaches. If you ever wondered what a cat/cockroach hybrid would look like, then this is the film for you.
Suffice to say, at the end of the film, man triumphs over beast, largely due to the larger than life local exterminator, and happy and entertained we retired to Nicks bedroom. All was going well - we were going through the usual 'Name your World XI football team' type stuff, then Stoxie got up for a piss, only to return a few seconds later, white as Plums hair, and crying like a girl.
"In...the ...bathroom...." he stammered.
"Massive.......flying ....creature."
"Not...safe........Can't ....go...in."
We bundled down the corridor/tunnelball pitch together, and with Stoxie binging up the rear, and peered round the bathroom door.
He was right.
There it was. Fluttering round the lightbulb was the biggest moth I had ever, and probably still have ever seen.
We needed an exterminator par exellence. We needed the guy from the film we had just seen.
We needed Homer.
But he wasn't there. Left with the alternative option of Stoxie pissing in Nicks room, I stood up to the plate.
With the boys chanting 'Homer, Homer, Homer', I launched myself at the flying abomination, and with both hands, somehow managed to wrestle the vile beast out of the window.
Job done, my talent for insect extermination was carved into stone, and the name stuck. I'm not sure if my other friends in Norwich know the real reason I'm called Homer. It's not for a cartoon caricature, or a sexual slur.
It's because that fateful night in Chelmsford, I damn well saved Nick and Stoxies lives.
One day I might tell you all why I'm called Slippy in Cambridge. My close friends here all know.
All I'll say for now, is it's got very little to do with Underworld, and alot more to do with undercarriage....
Slippymark/Rauc/Homer/Mark
Black Swarm, starring Robert 'Freddie Kruger' Englund is proper made for TV bile, and therefore great. So far the killer wasps have only been normal sized, but I'm holding out for a huge CGI motherfucker, on really a ropey greenscreen background.
And whilst watching, I'm reminded of another great creature feature from my youth that has left it's imprint on my life.
My blogging name is Slippymark, but nobody really calls me that. I am known to many friends in Cambridge as Slippy, but when creating usernames and logins for other websites (such as my photo pages), my real name was always taken, and Slippy was always too short, so I started using Slippymark for stuff, and found it was always available, so it has become my avatar. Go Google it, apart from the odd Underworld remix by Mark Mendes, it's me all the way down.
Don't search for Mrs Slippy - or at least not from a work computer. That Mr & Mrs Slippy are definitely not us...
But my friends from my formative years in Norwich do not know me as Slippy, and regular readers, or Facebook friends may have noticed, to them I am Rauc, or Homer.
First guess might be that it's something to do with the overweight, imbecilic man-child of the same name, but you'd be wrong. It pre-dates The Simpsons.
Nor is it short for homosexual. I may be a sensitive soul, but I'm too lazy, too poorly groomed, and too attracted to women to bat for that team. Sorry boys.
No, Homer stems from a film from my youth.....
Back in the late 80's, the formidable Cringleford lads were wrenched apart as key player Nick was relocated to Writtle, near Chelmsford.
To support him in his exile, Stoxie and I would go down on occasional weekends, and spend our days farting on his brothers head, playing tunnelball, and watching films on VHS.
In the days before 2 million channels of fuck all, and the endless possibilities of the internet, the only way to amuse 3 teenage boys of an evening would be for Nicks mum to drive us to the nearest video store, and us to get out absolutely anything that we hadn't seen before involving sport (American Flyer's anyone?), ninjas, or horror - usually one of each.
Let's not forget that this was before Blockbuster and other such mega chains. Video stores were the size of a walk in wardrobe, and stocked a copy of everything. And when I say everything, I don't mean they had a copy of every film, I mean no matter how new or popular a film was, they only ever had one of it - and the good ones were always out.
So by this process (which also held true at home), it was highly likely that if there was a bad sport/ninja/horror film made in the 80's, I've seen it (and since bought my own copy).
One fateful night, we returned to Nick's Elba with a copy of The Nest. A genre staple of island town plagued by mutated insects - in this case roaches. If you ever wondered what a cat/cockroach hybrid would look like, then this is the film for you.
Suffice to say, at the end of the film, man triumphs over beast, largely due to the larger than life local exterminator, and happy and entertained we retired to Nicks bedroom. All was going well - we were going through the usual 'Name your World XI football team' type stuff, then Stoxie got up for a piss, only to return a few seconds later, white as Plums hair, and crying like a girl.
"In...the ...bathroom...." he stammered.
"Massive.......flying ....creature."
"Not...safe........Can't ....go...in."
We bundled down the corridor/tunnelball pitch together, and with Stoxie binging up the rear, and peered round the bathroom door.
He was right.
There it was. Fluttering round the lightbulb was the biggest moth I had ever, and probably still have ever seen.
We needed an exterminator par exellence. We needed the guy from the film we had just seen.
We needed Homer.
But he wasn't there. Left with the alternative option of Stoxie pissing in Nicks room, I stood up to the plate.
With the boys chanting 'Homer, Homer, Homer', I launched myself at the flying abomination, and with both hands, somehow managed to wrestle the vile beast out of the window.
Job done, my talent for insect extermination was carved into stone, and the name stuck. I'm not sure if my other friends in Norwich know the real reason I'm called Homer. It's not for a cartoon caricature, or a sexual slur.
It's because that fateful night in Chelmsford, I damn well saved Nick and Stoxies lives.
One day I might tell you all why I'm called Slippy in Cambridge. My close friends here all know.
All I'll say for now, is it's got very little to do with Underworld, and alot more to do with undercarriage....
Slippymark/Rauc/Homer/Mark
05 July 2009
The Duckworth-Lewis Method
Not, as some readers might assume, the method your significant other uses to prevent you watching The Premiership on Sky, because they have to watch Coronation Street, and then the continuing adventures of Inspector Morses brickie turned detective sidekick.
Nor the method of calculating the target score of the second cricket team to bat following a break in play due to rain.
But very much cricket related, for Duckworth and Lewis are the alter egos of one Thomas Walsh (whom I've never heard of), and Neil Hammon - he of The Divine Comedy, Father Ted theme tune, and seminal work for the aforementioned show, My Lovely Horse.
With the Ashes just 4 days away, it's perfect timing for an album based around the joys of Cricket. There are dozens, if not hundreds of football related songs, with a couple coming out each year for the domestic finals, and then countless others at every Euro and World Cup, but when it comes to cricket, there are woefully few.
There's 10ccs Dreadlock Holiday, and Rory Bremner had a stab with n-n-nineteen
By far my favourite was one that my friend Nick brought back from Australia entitled 'Come on Aussie Come on'. I managed to find a copy of it on YouTube, but it was it's B-side 'Lah lah la la laaaah West Indies' that was the real crowd pleaser. Nick, if you've still got it on vinyl, and have the ways and means to digitise it, I'd love a copy.
But back to present day, and a whole album of cricket.
Piss take, parody, or pop gold? Lets find out.....
1) The Coin Toss - Set's the mood nicely. Let's play.
2) The Age of Revolution - It's got a 20's baseline, modern electronica, and conjures up the modern history of the game nicely. Duckworth and Lewis' first delivery finds line and length, but doesn't really challenge the batsman.
3) Gentlemen and Players - A bit like if 'Love' had put down their spliffs and knocked the ball about a bit. Wistful and summery. Just how village cricket should be, but not the Ashes. No balls to it, a no ball it is.
4) The Sweet Spot - Glam-rock-tastic. Hits the sweetspot, and it's over the pavilion and out onto The Edgware Road.
5) Jiggery Pokery - The tale of the First Test 1993 as told by Mike Gatting. An easy first innings target at Old Trafford. Merv Hughes, Ather's, Dickie Bird, and the debut of a certain young leg spinner taking him for a duck. I remember Gatts, and I hate Shane Warne too. We all do.
6) Mason on the Boundary - Delightful. Dreams of long summer days, and having a little sit down in the outfield. Just how fielding should be.
7) Rain Stops Play - Instrumental break in the proceedings, pull on the covers and go and make a cup of tea, it's only a shower....
8) Meeting Mr Miandad - Hannon/Lewis at his witty best. Off to Pakistan in a VW Camper Van. An historical, phantasmagorical destiny. I'm going to be humming this for days. It's another six.
9) The Nightwatchman - The melancholy song of the fall guy brought up the batting order at the end of the day so one of the big hitters doesn't lose his wicket to failing light. I remember Jack Russell coming on as a nightwatchman against Sri Lanka in the 80's and still being there the following lunch time, nearly making a century. Not bad for a banana eating, floppy hatted, wicket keeping Derek Smalls lookalike.
10) Flatten the Hay - Still full of whimsy. Duckworth and Lewis clearly like their cricket in the cucumber sandwiches and tea in the pavilion variety.
11) Test Match Special - Who doesn't love a bit of TMS.
12) The End of the Over - The official end of the album on the sleeve, but as I bought it from itunes, it's patently obvious that there's a hidden bonus track....
13) Pedalo - The funky misadventures of a man on a pedalo in the Caribbean. What on earth could this have to do with cricket?
All in all it's quite a nice little listen. As expected from Neil Hannon, it's clever lyrics and generally full of optimism for an idyllic English (or Irish) summer, watching gentleman players as the sun goes down on the village pitch. Neither piss take nor parody. He proper likes cricket, alhough his glasses are rather more rose tinted than the sporty wraparounds favoured by players these days.
I will be mostly watching the games finish via a pop up window on my pc at work Ball by ball scores, praying for a miracle. And that's provided each Test isn't all wrapped up in 4 days...
You never know, Australia might lose.
Because that's what it will take, not England winning - we're clearly not good enough for that, Australia need to lose. But given their (Andrew Symondsless) showing in the Twenty20, anything is possible.
At least we won't be beaten by Duckworth-Lewis in the event of rain (unlike Twenty20), because in Test Cricket you can still play for 5 days and come away with a draw.
What a great sport.
Nor the method of calculating the target score of the second cricket team to bat following a break in play due to rain.
But very much cricket related, for Duckworth and Lewis are the alter egos of one Thomas Walsh (whom I've never heard of), and Neil Hammon - he of The Divine Comedy, Father Ted theme tune, and seminal work for the aforementioned show, My Lovely Horse.
With the Ashes just 4 days away, it's perfect timing for an album based around the joys of Cricket. There are dozens, if not hundreds of football related songs, with a couple coming out each year for the domestic finals, and then countless others at every Euro and World Cup, but when it comes to cricket, there are woefully few.
There's 10ccs Dreadlock Holiday, and Rory Bremner had a stab with n-n-nineteen
By far my favourite was one that my friend Nick brought back from Australia entitled 'Come on Aussie Come on'. I managed to find a copy of it on YouTube, but it was it's B-side 'Lah lah la la laaaah West Indies' that was the real crowd pleaser. Nick, if you've still got it on vinyl, and have the ways and means to digitise it, I'd love a copy.
But back to present day, and a whole album of cricket.
Piss take, parody, or pop gold? Lets find out.....
1) The Coin Toss - Set's the mood nicely. Let's play.
2) The Age of Revolution - It's got a 20's baseline, modern electronica, and conjures up the modern history of the game nicely. Duckworth and Lewis' first delivery finds line and length, but doesn't really challenge the batsman.
3) Gentlemen and Players - A bit like if 'Love' had put down their spliffs and knocked the ball about a bit. Wistful and summery. Just how village cricket should be, but not the Ashes. No balls to it, a no ball it is.
4) The Sweet Spot - Glam-rock-tastic. Hits the sweetspot, and it's over the pavilion and out onto The Edgware Road.
5) Jiggery Pokery - The tale of the First Test 1993 as told by Mike Gatting. An easy first innings target at Old Trafford. Merv Hughes, Ather's, Dickie Bird, and the debut of a certain young leg spinner taking him for a duck. I remember Gatts, and I hate Shane Warne too. We all do.
6) Mason on the Boundary - Delightful. Dreams of long summer days, and having a little sit down in the outfield. Just how fielding should be.
7) Rain Stops Play - Instrumental break in the proceedings, pull on the covers and go and make a cup of tea, it's only a shower....
8) Meeting Mr Miandad - Hannon/Lewis at his witty best. Off to Pakistan in a VW Camper Van. An historical, phantasmagorical destiny. I'm going to be humming this for days. It's another six.
9) The Nightwatchman - The melancholy song of the fall guy brought up the batting order at the end of the day so one of the big hitters doesn't lose his wicket to failing light. I remember Jack Russell coming on as a nightwatchman against Sri Lanka in the 80's and still being there the following lunch time, nearly making a century. Not bad for a banana eating, floppy hatted, wicket keeping Derek Smalls lookalike.
10) Flatten the Hay - Still full of whimsy. Duckworth and Lewis clearly like their cricket in the cucumber sandwiches and tea in the pavilion variety.
11) Test Match Special - Who doesn't love a bit of TMS.
12) The End of the Over - The official end of the album on the sleeve, but as I bought it from itunes, it's patently obvious that there's a hidden bonus track....
13) Pedalo - The funky misadventures of a man on a pedalo in the Caribbean. What on earth could this have to do with cricket?
All in all it's quite a nice little listen. As expected from Neil Hannon, it's clever lyrics and generally full of optimism for an idyllic English (or Irish) summer, watching gentleman players as the sun goes down on the village pitch. Neither piss take nor parody. He proper likes cricket, alhough his glasses are rather more rose tinted than the sporty wraparounds favoured by players these days.
I will be mostly watching the games finish via a pop up window on my pc at work Ball by ball scores, praying for a miracle. And that's provided each Test isn't all wrapped up in 4 days...
You never know, Australia might lose.
Because that's what it will take, not England winning - we're clearly not good enough for that, Australia need to lose. But given their (Andrew Symondsless) showing in the Twenty20, anything is possible.
At least we won't be beaten by Duckworth-Lewis in the event of rain (unlike Twenty20), because in Test Cricket you can still play for 5 days and come away with a draw.
What a great sport.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
