"On Six One News - trying to get some clear information on future of Roscommon - will it close or not? Confusion right now." Bryan Dobson
Yes, Roscommon may be closing its legendary Gates and becoming an independent isolationist state. Tune in to RTÉ News for the latest on this breaking story.
EDIT: On Six One News himself, Dobson followed this up by talking about a "man-person shortage" in Roscommon Hospital. Some very strange things are going on in that county...
I requested the aid of the Twitter masses once before; now I come with a similar, even tangentially related request. Once more, I have a hashtag which seems sadly underused; in this case, it is #bazookathatshoottypewriters. Clearly, this is of use in a wide variety of everyday situations; as such, I urge you in the strongest possible terms to carry it forth with you as a new conversational implement. After all, bazookas that shoot typewriters would brighten up anyone’s day.
[Sorry, folks, it’s another Doctor Who post. Spoilers for the current season abound.]
Well, we’ve now arrived at the first ever mid-season hiatus of Doctor Who. We’re seven episodes into Matt Smith and Steven Moffat’s second season in the TARDIS, and dear Lord, have we seen some crazy things. I have a few notes to make at this point:
-I won’t make any predictions at this stage, because one thing I’ve learned about the Moff is that he loves to confound and surprise, in the best possible way. Like the rest of the Internet, I did figure out who River Song was in advance of ‘A Good Man Goes to War’. I made sure to triumphantly tweet Moffat the fact too. He did not reply. Clearly dumbfounded.
-With every viewing, I love ‘The Big Bang’ a little more; it’s become one of my favourite Who episodes. So I was delighted that the current series followed that episode’s mind-bending example. The opening two-parter was a work of sheer genius; incredibly clever, while not lacking in emotional punch. I actually gasped at the brilliance of the Silence’s eventual defeat, not to mention THAT jaw-dropping moment at the end of ‘Day of the Moon’. We’ve had lots more clever threads; the woman in the eye-patch, Amy’s mysterious pregnancy – and these have been paid off now too. I hate it when threads are left tantalisingly hanging.
-Continuity from the last series has also been handled well. We’ve had lots of reminders of Rory’s 2000-year wait in particular, which makes me think it must be significant. There’s been lots of speculation that Rory is the real “good man” – maybe even the man River killed, the “best man [she] ever knew”? Only time will tell. We also had the rather casual introduction of a Silurian in the most recent episode.
-Speaking of Madam Vastra the lesbian crime-fighting Silurian – that sounds like the greatest spin-off series imaginable. Keep your Torchwood; I’ll take a ninja reptile over a bisexual immortal any day of the week.
-I’ve gotten quite used to Matt Smith, and really come to like him, which is great. He feels like “the Doctor” to me; it’s a tricky point to reach, but once it’s reached, it makes him almost untouchable. Every generation has “their” Doctor; for the Moff and his cohorts, it’s Tom Baker or Jon Pertwee. For some slightly older viewers, it’s Patrick Troughton. For my friends and I, it’s David Tennant. Some younger viewers now will be adopting Smith (how appropriate) as their Doctor now, and they’re lucky. His eccentricity is perfect for the character.
-As for Karen Gillan, I continue to admire her in a terribly objectified way. I do quite like Amy... but really, I just can’t get past Karen.
Can you blame me?
-‘The Doctor’s Wife’ – what is there to say about this episode? It was more or less perfect; certainly one of the best episodes since the series’s return six years ago, and probably one of the best ever. I expected something great from Neil Gaiman, but it really surpassed all my expectations. The idea of personifying the TARDIS seems so simple with hindsight, and yet no-one else could ever have thought of it. I’ve always loved the idea of the Doctor and the TARDIS having a close personal relationship, so this episode was perfect for me. Plus we got to see some TARDIS corridors, which is something I always enjoy.
-Every episode so far has been of a remarkably high quality. ‘The Curse of the Black Spot’ was probably the weakest so far, and yet I found it hugely enjoyable; not the let-down I was expecting after the sheer brilliance of the previous episodes. It’s hugely premature, but I’m really coming to suspect this could be the best season yet.
Expectations are higher than ever before, but there is a real sense that the Moff, unlike his protagonist quite a lot of the time, has a real plan for the future and isn’t just making things up on the fly or throwing as many ingredients as he can think of together to form a huge, empty spectacle (yes, I’m talking about a certain giant Welshman). So, with no more than a glimpse of a skeletal hand holding a sonic screwdriver, let’s look to the future, and get ready to kill Hitler in the autumn.
I'm noted for my high regard for grammar and spelling, and my pedantry with regard to the proper use of such. Thus, the Internet is rather a bad place for me. Everywhere I look, my precious grammar rules are being flouted in the most heinous way. Yet I have no intention of railing against this; there is quite simply no point. Besides, I'm someone who has typed pretty much everything, including formal examinations, for several years now; I'm faster at typing than most people, and thus have less need to revert to shorthand – often the flouting of these rules is a simple matter of expediency. More troubling to me, however, is the fact that the Internet seems to be developing its own language – one which takes perfectly respectable English vocabulary and puts it through the meat grinder. I'm not even talking about abbreviations (brb, lol, btw and the like), but simply the bizarre hybrid of English in which single-word descriptions of just about everything are sufficient, and those descriptions are so banal as to be almost meaningless – "Fail!" being, I believe, the absolute nadir. As such, I shall stand here ordering the tide not to come in, and lay down a few tips and recommendations for the sake of my sanity.
- Less of the superlatives, please. Obviously, this is an old one, as exemplified by the immortal Comic Book Guy and his "worst _____ EVER!" catchphrase, but really, I'm going to have to start demanding empirical proof every time someone says something like this. Some kind of detailed experiment using control groups and such.
- On a similar note, there are the markedly emphatic adjectives. "Awesome" has passed into the vernacular to such an extent that I can just about accept it, while such words as "brilliant" still retain their original meanings. I recently witnessed, however, someone describing a Doctor Who character as "eternally awesome". This is such a ridiculously overblown description that I can't even begin to fathom it. This is the kind of language that might be used to describe God in the Old Testament. Ironically, it was applied to the most mundane character in the series. Constant use of the strongest adjectives in a language tends only to devalue those adjectives, in much the same way that swearing becomes more acceptable the more it's used.
- "Fail" is a verb, not a noun; treat it as such (even in reference to a test; "I got a fail" is grammatically suspect at best). "Failure" is a perfectly appropriate noun, if you must have one for that hilarious video of a cat falling off a table. Do please try to qualify it a little though, please. It is not, however, an adjective; "failing" is perhaps the closest equivalent. The same goes for "win"; describing something as "win" is a crime against the English language.
- The word "epic" (in its adjective form) is quickly going the way of "random"; becoming so hideously overused in so many different contexts (to which its application is questionable at best) as to risk losing all meaning. I put it in a separate category to the aforementioned emphatic adjectives because it is perhaps the worst offender. The final of Britain's Got Talent is not "epic"; it would be epic if it were genuinely to be a talent show featuring every single inhabitant of the United Kingdom singing with a dog, or doing some kind of bizarre dance. Epics need to be genuinely gobsmacking in scale. The Rapture, for instance, would be epic. A lengthy bus journey, unless it's between dimensions or planes of reality, is not.
- More than one exclamation mark is usually a tautology at best, incoherent at worst. More than three is just abandoning all pretence at sanity.
- Finally, ladies and gentleman, please look to your Caps Lock keys. Shift is a rather more nuanced ally.
Perhaps the worst thing is that this particular vernacular is beginning to worm its way into spoken language; I occasionally hear people describing things as "win" or "fail" or other ghastly Internet-based terms. I would describe them as "neologisms", but in fact they are more like debasements of existing words.
As such, I shall continue to sit here, in my own grammatically correct corner of the Internet, and figuratively stroke the English language like a beloved cat. Do let me know if you can think of any other hideous debasements. If you'd care to disagree, do feel free; bear in mind that I was born at least a century too late, and have little regard for the idea of language being in flux. Grammar is my lover, and our relationship is a close one.
I somehow managed to miss the news, almost two weeks old, that the hitherto ubiquitous Howard Brown has been removed from Halifax advertising. And no, I didn't know his name before now either. Remarkable. I rather assumed his name was "Halifax Guy", and that he'd been christened by very farsighted parents. Nonetheless, this comes as shocking news. As the Independent article to which I linked notes, Brown's cheery countenance was not for the recession. In addition, perhaps some high-ranking bankers became nervous about the numerous implications of a bank that promised "extra" when applied to their rather sizeable chunk of the "extra" pie.
Of course, Brown was merely the public face of an institution dark and Machiavellian enough to rival Mordor or Skaro. As Derek noted in a previous WAKE UP article, the Halifax dancers were imprisoned and forced to dance for the amusement of others, and the ultimate betterment of the bank (I'd link to the article, but unfortunately I can't hyperlink to paper. I've tried.) So really the end of Brown's era shouldn't be mourned too much. Of course, Brown is just the figurehead, the mouthpiece; the Mouth of Sauron, if I may continue to extend a metaphor (I can't think of a Dalek equivalent; they're not much for talking or image, really). The real manipulators remain in place.
There is something rather sad about the whole thing, though. As Brown joins the huddled masses of the unemployed, we find ourselves asking: should a man be laid off for his cheeriness in a time of doom and gloom? Were the Marx Brothers fired for bringing slapstick into the Great Depression? Were medieval jesters, with their highly developed farting skills, laid off for bringing humour into the court? Was Gavin and Stacey wiped from the airwaves for bringing joy to the dystopian wasteland that is Wales?
Howard Brown has unexpectedly become a luminary; a symbol for all those determined to enjoy life whatever the circumstances. We will dance on the beaches! We will sing mangled versions of classic pop songs in the streets! We will never surrender!
Truly, we are humbled to share the Earth with him.
Good night, sweet prince, and a flight of angels sing thee to thy cheery retirement.
