Better than a kick in the knickers with a winklepicker

So. Dead Set, eh?

We were delighted on retuning our Freeview box that our reception at present is only moderately crap, so we were able to get E4+1... unfortunately, that meant us having to stay up late (well, late for parents, that is) to watch it, since 4OD won't work on a Mac for some mystical reason. We'll prob tape episode 2 tonight instead (which will also be a faff since our video doesn't work properly either... for a couple with a lot of techy stuff, we really don't have much that does what it's supposed to do!)

This is partially because of the staying up late thing, and partially because it gave us both Zombie dreams. Both zombie dreams were intruded upon at some point of the night by a drunken twat screaming down his phone (we think... either that or it was to the voices in his head since it was a conversation that we could only hear one side of) and mine involved dreamsex with The Actor Kevin Eldon. Get in.

I am reading another book! For pleasure! Would you believe it? It's called The End of Mr Y, it's by a chum of Dr Flo's and it's all about some idiot academic woman who lives off fags, awful coffee and old men's semen and gets obsessed with a rare 19th Century Gothic Novella. It's set in Canterbury, and my old university, which is fun to read. It's pretty good, with interesting ambles into the realms of quantum physics, homoeopathy and Victorian philosophy, even if the lead and pretty much everybody you're supposed to care for is an utterly punchable, flaky, unwashed Pseud. I'd describe the main character as the sort of Mary Sue that Tracy Emin would come up with if Tracy Emin wrote Suefic. Apart from that, I like it.

Well, I'd better add 'The Offspring' to my list of TV Episodes That Have Made Me Cry A Little Bit Even Though I Know I Shouldn't.

see also: Ellen Tigh dying, Libby dying, Jin going 'splodie and that episode with Deanna Troi's dead sister, purely because Baby!Deanna looks a lot like Vi.

I swear, it's the Mummy Hormones. They've turned me into a wuss. Even less defendable is the bit in 'The House on Pooh Corner' where Pooh volunteers Piglet to live with him. I've read that bit twice now and both times I did so with a little lump in my throat. It's so beautiful, man!

Bloody Hell. The War of the Worlds is just amazing. I'm currently with the protagonist's brother at Barnet, trying to avoid the crush of terrified Londoners emptying the city. The way that Wells has pre-empted the horror of 20th Century Warfare and applied it to the superficial gentry of Victorian London.. it's simply incredible. It's such a pity that there hasn't been a really good film version of this - why did Spielberg feel the need to modernise it? It's so much more potent and terrifying in its original setting, with the Martians inflicting elements of modern warfare - chemical weapons, radiation, attacking civilians instead of engaging on the battlefield and whatnot - upon an unprepared, slow-moving, slow-communicating 19th Century populace. Scenes of the Martians approaching a city in a world where news actually travels slower than they do, and where peoples' only means of escape are by foot, bicycle, horse & cart or rammed boats and steam trains is just so much more frightening than in a 21st Century setting.

Bloody brilliant book. I've missed reading for pleasure.