No Middle Name

I just got an email from Blogger HQ informing me that I was the only person in the world not to have posted a review of Episode III, and that if I do not rectify the situation as soon as possible I will be forcibly evicted from the blogosphere. It was good. Not as good as the original three, better than the first two prequels. If every single line of dialogue had been cut out it would have been brilliant. As it was, I cringed every time someone opened their mouth. Especially Padme. She went from gung-ho action woman in the Phantom Menace, to simpering oh-Anni-please-woman in this one. Annoyed by Yoda, I was. Backwards talking, all the time, he should not. Okay it is, every now and again. Continuous reversal of syntax, infuriate it does. Kick more arse, he should have. Great warrior is he, when shut up he does. 100% waste of wookies. They did nothing. There should have been more wookies. More specifically, there should have been more wookie-based droid thumpage. Like the Ewoks, but able...

Yesterday, the final Star Wars film was released. You may not have noticed, there was little fanfare. Anyway, the whole interwebs were filled with chatter from people who went to see the first one 28 years ago to the day. It got me thinking: did I actually go to see Star Wars in the cinema? I've always been convinced I did. I would have been about 4 years old, but I can't remember going to the cinema to see it. I remember going to see Return of the Jedi with my mum, the same year we went to see Octopussy, the last year that there was a cinema in my home town. It closed down in 1984, I think. I can also remember going to see The Empire Strikes Back with my sister. I was racking my brains earlier today, trying to dredge up memories of Star Wars itself. I can remember going to see Superman with my brother and sister, in my sister's Wolseley Hornet . We had to go to the next town, since the vaguaries of the distribution system meant that they got films a few weeks before our to...

Three weeks ago I picked out a book from our local library: River of Gods , by Ian McDonald. It's nominated for, or has won, a sackful of awards. This is a book I should read, I thought. Awards = Good. That's a rule that's always true, right? The rule may well hold in this case, but I wouldn't know. I never got any further than the first 8 chapters or so. This was due to a number of things. Firstly, that I don't have that much time to read books these days; I'm either at work, or looking after the kids, or drooling insensibly in front of the television. Fitting in time to read around all this is difficult. Oh, and I have to talk to my wife occasionally too, otherwise I've found she can get a little irritable. Secondly, the book is big. 583 pages. Big books take a long time to read, they take a hefty chunk out of my free time. A book has to be worth that investment. The last really big book I read was Jonathan Strange , which was very good but at 80...

Here we go... the post that signifies I'm about to disappear up my own arsehole. I've added a little thing to the sidebar from blogpatrol , which counts the (lack of) visitors to the site, and tells me where they came from. It seemed like a good idea at the time, a way to find out about my readers. What I've mainly found out is that I have none. Which makes sense - I've not told anyone about the blog, so there's no reason for anyone to read it. I didn't start this thing to get readers anyway. It's supposed to be just for me. So why do I find myself obsessively checking the blogpatrol counter every day? Suddenly I want people to visit my site, whereas before - when I couldn't know anything about visitors - I didn't really care. Which brings up another point: is there any point writing things if no-one ever reads them? It would be very easy for me to neglect this blog, and have it join the thousands of other blogs in Blogger's big blog orphanage - ...

Image(632) custard Originally uploaded by photosam . About two days ago someone crept into my house, while I was asleep, sliced the top off my head, scooped my brains out and replaced them with custard. I'm not sure how much custard was involved. Based on the volume of my head, I'd estimate about 4 cans. It feels like it's packed in quite tightly. My ears are throbbing. Maybe that means it's going to start oozing out soon. It turns out to be surprisingly good for conducting thoughts. I can breathe, move, and drink coffee. All major functions are there. The only problem seems to be that any desire I once had to do productive work has gone. Thoughts related to my job are slowed to a crawl. I'd rather stare out of the window, than tippity-tap at the keyboard like a good little code monkey. Mind you, work-related thoughts have always been a little on the glacial side of speedy. I've tried coffeeing the custard into action. Doesn't work. I just end up wi...