Better than a kick in the knickers with a winklepicker

I know I hardly ever do proper reviews, these days, but the new Room 101 has wound me up enough to warrant one.

( Just call it Rich Peoples Problems and have done with it )

A while ago, I annoyed a friend by making a sweeping statement with regards to my perception of the general intelligence levels of Youtube users. Like the vast majority of my sweeping statements, it was meant largely in jest. Youtube’s become a part of online life – I use it myself, many times a day, for clips & cartoons to amuse the wee ones and for when I want to share or listen to a song once Spotify’s decided that I’ve had my allocated 9 minutes of music and can never be allowed any more, ever.

Therefore, I retract the comment, made as a reaction to The Only Way Is Essex being awarded the Youtube ZOMG best show ever lol!!!! Bafta (my expression was much the same as Martin Freeman’s)





and offer the following, revised sweeping statement: Between 70- 90% of Youtube comments cheerfully exhibit such a dearth of intelligence, humour, originality, imagination and basic literacy that it makes me wish the internet would become self-aware, read itself and then duly destroy the world in disgust.

Obviously, I could say this of pretty much any much-used site where we troglodytes are encouraged to tell the universe what we reckon – Facebook, Have Your Fucking Say, Comment Is Cunting Free, even my darling shiny, shiny Twitter. My own timeline on twitter is filled with nice or funny people (sometimes even both) tweeting clever, amusing stuff, links that have yet to get tired out, puns that have yet to be ripped off by Cheggers, comments on the news, films or literature, interesting political arguments and so on and so forth. But I am aware that this is only because I’m an elitist twat on twitter and fill my timeline only with people who are going to dance for me, dance like the merry jesters that they are. A quick glance at the Trending Topics list gives a horrible glimpse of the misogynistic, irony-free, mouth-frothing, bieber-bothering dimwittery outside my liberal comedy snob bubble. You always know if there’s been a disaster elsewhere in the world if you go onto Twitter and see a hashtag telling you to pray for somewhere. Calls for rather more practical help tend not to make it into the top 10 trends, especially if Justin Bieber’s just done something/said something/has a lovely smile, or if everybody’s replacing words in film titles (usually the same words in the same 3 Harry Potter films titles) with the word ‘bacon’. With Hilarious Consequences. My favourite Trending Topic phenomenon is the ‘OMG why is this trending?’ Loop, when something obscure or in poor taste trends for a bit, so instead of looking it up if they don’t understand or ignoring/quietly snarking if they don’t approve, twits in their hundreds tweet either ‘LOL “Obscure Thing” is trending! WTF?!?’ or ‘OMG I can’t believe “Offensive Thing” is trending! That’s so offensive!!!’ so, the thing rises up and up the trending topics, and then stays there, held aloft by people tweeting that either they don’t understand what it is or that they didn’t want to see it trend in the first place. Genius.

Getting back to the Youtubes. What’s sparked my most recent despair in the keyboard mashings of the people who like to watch clips with their eyes, form one or more opinion that may or may not have something to do with what they’ve seen and then let everybody else wanting to watch the clip know what it is that they reckon about this thing, is my recent jaunt down the Memory Lane branch of the Information Superhighway.

And, to be fair, Youtube is brilliant for that. Pretty much every thing that you might remember is on Youtube, now. You don’t need a long term memory for telly stuff at all now that we’ve got it. Youtube might also be why we don’t really have nostalgia countdown shows any more. Thank fuck. We can just get in to the Youtube Link Loop going ‘coo, remember that?’ to yourself without Justin Lee Collins barking ‘remember that, eh? Remember the thing? The thing that was on the telly? Remember that happening?’ at you every five minutes.

Because we don’t need Justin Lee Collins to go ‘remember the thing? I remember the thing’ at us now – we have our fellow Youtube users. I mean – I imagine that for somebody to search Samurai Pizza Cats, say, they have to remember the cartoon at least a little (or as in my case yesterday, have the theme tune stuck in my head with ‘Benedict Cumberbatch’ sung over the name of the titular feline heroes for no apparent reason) so I don’t quite see the need that every other commenter on an old tv show clip feels to tell us that they too remember it. I wouldn’t mind so much, but it’s always bloody there, on anything more than a year or two old, over and over and over again. ‘lol I remember this’. It’s not the obviousness of the statement that gets me down quite as much as the repetitiveness.

Because, you see, there’s only ever 5 comment types on any nostalgic clip.

1, lol I remember this. Possibly followed by I remember watching it back in [insert decade here] or I am now [insert age here] To which, my Inner Spock quirks an eyebrow and responds with a deadpan ‘fascinating’.

2, BRING THIS BACK! - No need. It’s on Youtube, or possibly even DVD if you’re lucky. Let’s face it, you’d only complain if it got remade.

3, This is so much better than the crap they make for kids these days No it isn’t. There was some great stuff when I was a kid, and some real shit as well. My kids get sheer brilliance like Shaun the Sheep and Octonauts as well as bollocks like Grandpa in the Pocket (which they’re not allowed to watch because it creeps me out). If you think all kid’s TV these days is rubbish, either you don’t have kids or you only put on bollocks telly for them, and what kind of parent does that make you, eh? EH?!?!?

4, lol WTF is this?!? Read the info, douchecanoe – or at the very least, the title. Unless you’re such an exhibitionist that you feel the need to tell everybody that you don’t instantly recognise something you’ve apparently clicked on as an automatic reflex, apparently can’t read and certainly can’t use Google to find out what ‘the fuck’ this, in fact, is. Sorry, that was silly of me. Please, do go on to BBC HYS, wait for the obituary of a notable figure that you don’t recognise straight away and rush to be the first to comment with ‘Who?’

5, lol their on drugs!!!!! This is a must, especially for any pre-school show, retro or modern, anything with bright colours, anything carefully aimed at entertaining babies (especially by the brilliant Anne & Chris Wood), anything with props or involving falling over, anything with songs, anything with West Indian accents, because all Jamaicans are on drugs, basically anything that involves any level of whimsy. The only possible explanation for any of it is – not that these programmes are/were made by people who understand how to delight small children, but that they were all on drugs. All the time. I mean, stuff like stop motion is obviously a piece of piss when you’re off your tits on acid, isn’t it? As is dancing and interacting with your environment while in a massive padded costume that you can’t see out of. They’re obviously on drugs. That, or the commenter wants to show how counter-culture and edgy they are by announcing that ‘lol there on drugz!!’, which would be rather more impressive had somebody else not done exactly the same thing a few comments before. And three other people on a different clip. And four other people on a further clip. And so on.

As you can see, it’s not the fact that these comments are generally poppycock that grates so much as the repetitiveness of the same old poppycock. Let’s try to resolve this. I’d like to see people take the time to post their thoughts in haiku or limerick form, just to break up the monotony a bit. Come on, it’ll be fun!

In The Night Garden:
Not as good as Dangermouse.
Their all on drugs lol.

From fannish5
Name your 5 fannish wishes for 2011.

1, That the Cumberholmes RP continues to be beyond awesome (will probably happen)
2, That S2 of Sherlock has, essentially, 'our' Irene in it. And 'our' Seb Moran as well. (will almost certainly not happen, but a girl can dream)
3, That the Memerson/Terry O'Quinn Hitmen series doesn't just get made, but gets broadcast over here. Pref on the BBC/Channel4, thanks (Possible)
4, That I bloody well finish Orpheus (less a wish, more a 'to-do' listing)
5, A decent part for La Reynolds on the Tellybox/in a fillum (HIGHLY UNLIKELY but never mind)

...he is tall, and very funny.

Batten down the hatches, ladies and gentlemen, because I have a Very Important Announcement To Make.

I think... I think I may now have a new Show. Something to actually give a fuck about watching again after the twin bombshells that were the end of Lost and reaching the final Wire DVD. Alackaday, this excitement is to be short lived since it's only a 3-episode run, but feature length episodes, so woo-hoo to that, frankly.

I speak of BBC1's Sherlock, which I was bound to give a try since;
1, I like the scriptual stylings of Mister Moffat
2, I like Sherlock Holmes (not enough for me to overcome my not-irrational loathing of Mockney Charlatan Guy Richie and watch his apparently-quite-good-movie, mind)
3, The actor playing Holmes has the world's most impressive name. Benedict Cumberbatch. Somebody on Twitter pointed out that it sounded like the sort of name an American writer would make up for a British character. I think it sounds like a cross between a JK Rowling character name and florid euphemism for a fanny. Whatever the case may be, it was such a brilliant name that that alone would have intriegued me. Try saying it aloud. Benedict Cumberbatch. Benedict Cumberbatch. 'Are you going to climb the wooden hill to Bedfordshire, dearest? Benedict Cumberbatch requires some attention'.

Turns out, Mister Cumberbatch was pretty good as Holmes, in my opinion. He's sort-of funny looking - he's got a face a bit like that of an android that's been briefly microwaved, but that's OK. He carries the charming egotism of Holmes well, although you do have to wonder as the funny-faced one swans around basking in his own splendid eccentricity, barking stacatto orders and insults at others, punctuated briefly with matter-of-fact declarations of his own genius whether instead of falling down Reichenbach falls, Holmes will just jump into a TARDIS and woosh off to run down a corridor away from an explosion, then fight a poorly rendered CG Monster.

However, I did love nearly all of this - I loved the style, the look of the whole thing, the acting was (mostly) brilliant and the script snappy, fun and (mostly) smart. there were a few details that I had issue with - I thought maybe if I mentioned those you can take it as read that I loved everything else about it.
( Spoilers for 'A Study In Pink' )
OK, so I've banged on about the bits I found silly a fair old amount but I really did like it a lot. Apart from those bits. And I'm very excited at having something to watch again. For the next two weeks. Oh well.

It's another 'whatever tickles your fancy' post, so behold:
( My Lost Ships - let me show u them (in doodle form!) )

First off - Jesus wept, LJ is there no way of getting rid of the 'recent posts by people you don't know in communities you're not part of about subjects you don't give a rat's crap about' every time I log in? That shit be boring.

In more telly related news, me & Hubs watched the last ever episode of The Wire last night, completing our year-long watchathon of the whole damn thing. It was glorious, my friends. If you haven't watched it, do - especially if you're fed up of tokenistic Characters of Colour (the cast is almost entirely Black, and BRILLIANT), lame, stereotypical female characters (lots of great female characters - most memorable are a hard nosed detective, a lawyer and a terrifying, tiny psychopathic gangster) and tokenistic, sleazy or stereotypical gay characters (Two of the core cast of characters are gay - a lesbian and a gay man. We see the lesbian's romantic relationship portrayed as flawed and everyday as many of the straight ones. The gay guy... there are no words to describe how amazing that guy is. My favourite character in the show by a long way. So compelling to watch.) Watch it, watch it, but watch it from the beginning, because it does not dumb down whatsoever, and there's no way of catching up with episodes that you've missed. It doesn't explain its cop jargon or street talk, it doesn't repeat or simplify any details, it doesn't hold your hand through any of it.

I mean, just look at this bloody scene (So very NSFW). Poetry.


Argh! Got to post this clip too, because Omar is just that awesome.

Day 20 is 'your favourite Lost Theory' - ( ...and then the Black Rock gets out of the shower and the statue realises it was all a dream... )

Day 17 is 'a Lost-related artwork'. I don't want to post any examples on here without asking her permission, but I really like this lady's Lost fanart. It's very stylised, all long necks, bright colours and swirling lines, no one's too pretty or too ugly (a very fine line, I've found, where Ben's concerned in partiular - seen many pics where he's either prettified or just looks hideous). Her portraits are very interesting and she's done some comic strips (also on the pages linked too) recapping some later episodes that are really funny.